


Honey Whiskey

by samzillastomps



Series: Imbued With Spirits [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Biting, Discussion of Boundaries, Edging, Elodie gets to know everyone in her own way, Elodie needs to get out of her head, F/M, Feelings, Fingering, Flirting, Grief, Grinding, Guilt, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Elodie has a new collection of tiny love bites from this, Implied Sexual Fantasy, Insomnia, Kisses, Longing, Making Out, Multiple Orgasms, Neck Bites, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Some angst, Tenderness, These two need to get a room, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, a brief and very sneaky massage, a goodbye kiss, a sort of handjob I suppose??, advice from some of the companions, almost-kisses, and some stress will occur, big ole hesitation, but not from who you'd think!, chair sex really, chess games as an excuse to touch one another, cullen prays for strength, cullen's jokes are either really sweet or hit/miss, discussion of consent, dreams always come back for these two..., elodie's feeling a bit delicate about all of this, finally these two get some release!!, gonna work up to being a bit of long-distance for the next chapter or so kiddos, gradual friendship (between everyone really), hidden kisses, it's well-meaning for sure, kind of dry humping if we're being totally honest, longfic, look there's just tension okay, lovemaking, means some letters will be exchanged ;), mild ordering, more than mild sexual content, morning prayer, pun ... fully intended now that i realize i made it, rated explicit for the things to come, reactions from some companions, release, some dream sweetness and fantasies to tide you over until the real stuff happens, some final fluff, some hints at orgasm delay/denial, talks of consent and some boundaries, the beginnings of falling in love, the confession!!, the slowest of slow burns, these two are figuring out how to talk to one another, wet dreams, with a lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2018-11-03 15:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 237,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10969968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps
Summary: Elodie Lavellan is barely holding it together. A Dalish elf -who isn't that good at being Dalish- finds herself in charge of the Inquisition and a ragtag team of companions. She isn't equipped for it, but she wasn't really equipped for her life before, either. Raised Andrastian by an eccentric father, named in strange Orlesian style, and soothed by a magpie-like collection of shiny objects, Elodie has always just done her absolute best.But after her first experience with a demon beyond the battlefield, her best isn't enough. Elodie is left with nightmares that seep into her waking hours. As the events of Thedas slowly unfurl around her, she has to try to keep herself and her companions from faltering. She never thought that stargazing with a former-Templar would help her find her center.Through starlit talks, stolen glances, and secret dreams, Elodie finds herself craving honeyed sweetness just beyond her reach. And maybe, given the chance, she'll gather up the strength to finally taste it.





	1. Hesitant Beginnings

Therinfal Redoubt was, by far, the last straw.

Elodie’s back had a sharp ache to it in the center, where she’d fallen on her bow rolling away from the envy demon near the end, and her temple was swimming with the conversations she’d overheard since her decision. _Unwise not to conscript them, they’ve proven they can’t be trusted. The holiest of hands holding the dirties of swords, pfeh. Templars deserve less mercy than that… to think that they will work alongside the Inquisition. Who is an elf to judge the Order in the first place?_

She’d taken everything in stride up until now, even when people had begun to call her the Herald of Andraste. Up until now, she’d borne it without much of a change in facial expression. Unlike Orlesians with their masks, Elodie found that simply wearing a suspicious glare hid her well enough. Like Threnn had at first, most thought her to just be another worker passing by; at first glance, she was someone who didn’t need a second one. It made it easy for Elodie to ignore them, because they were already ignoring her. And up until now, she had been alright.

The Templars traveling with her this time around, however, were making it harder and harder to keep a stiff upper lip. They meant well, but Maker did they talk.

Every other word was about Lord Seeker Lucius, about the way the demon had manifested to them, about the Red Templars eaten by lyrium from the inside out. By the end of the journey, Elodie was ready to never see, hear, or think about the color red ever again.

Back at Haven, with Cassandra at her side and her advisors awaiting her, she pushed open the door to the war room. Dark, candlelit, warm; Elodie was so grateful that the colors here were nothing like what they’d been in her mind, in the warped part of her conscious self that lit everything in crimson. Here, there was gold. Here, light shone on the beige stonework and hardwood in warmth, reminding Elodie of whiskey in a clear glass.

Josephine inclined her head, but Elodie suddenly couldn’t bear to look at any of them. It felt strange, to be speaking with them after she had listened to them in the furthest corners of her mind. It felt unreal, like poking at a slight wound on your own body with fascination; it only hurt if you thought about how it should.

She didn’t want to make any connections, didn’t want to ponder why the envy demon had chosen to show her who it did. It was just recent memories, that’s all. Trying to convince herself, Elodie glanced down at the war table as Leliana spoke. For a moment, she saw her own body splayed on the map before her.

She was a shadow, inky blood black against the page, and nobody noticed. Which meant it was not real, and she had to snap out of it.

Elodie grit her teeth, closed her eyes in a long blink, and when she opened them everything was as it should be. Buttery light. Metal markers on a map. Nobody the wiser.

“Herald,” Cassandra ventured, her voice low. She had a hand out, back by Elodie’s elbow. Had Elodie been swaying? She did feel unsteady, true, but she straightened her back. It was painful, but necessary. She swallowed before speaking.

“I’m fine,” Elodie mumbled, refusing to allow herself to stretch out a hand and grip Cassandra’s forearm to steady herself.

The Seeker narrowed her eyes, not believing her. Elodie could tell she disapproved, just a bit, just enough, but she turned back to the table in obedience with her hands clasped behind her back. The damage was done, however. The three on the other side of the table were quiet, watching her with caution.

“Please continue,” Elodie said, her brow furrowed. She put her hands on her hips, feeling more in control. When the Commander spoke, asking about her plan for the Templars now that they were to be housed at Haven, she answered steadily with just a touch of sarcasm. Everything’s normal, she hoped to say, everything’s fine. They were just relaxing again when Elodie glanced down at the war table and saw another body there.

This time at least everyone else could see it too, and they all recoiled at once.

Cole looked up at her, his face open and slightly dazed. Elodie fought to keep her heartbeat slow, fought to push the panic aside. This was fine. He was a good memory. He’d encouraged her, watched her light the lanterns past where the prisons held bodies of the people she owed her life to. He’d told her it would be okay.

Cassandra and Cullen were on either side of her, Elodie realized with a start. Both had sidestepped just so, just enough that if they needed to throw themselves in front of her, they could at a moment’s notice. Elodie frowned. She blocked out the image of Cullen with a knife at his neck, of Cassandra pacing in front of her with barely restrained fists held behind her back, and looked at Cole instead.

“He can stay,” she heard herself saying. “He helped me back there.”

She noticed Cassandra’s sword falter, but Cullen’s was steady. He glanced at her, and she inclined her head slightly, hoping he would know to put his sword away. He didn’t hesitate; upon her signal he sheathed it. Thank the Maker for small favors. Cassandra’s jaw was set, her suspicion less than alleviated, but at least Cullen was pretending to be neutral about it. Elodie closed her eyes again to dispel the image, and when she opened them Cole was gone. She envied him so much in that moment, demon or spirit or whatever he was.

* * *

 

Varric noticed first. Elodie supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, what with how intuitive he was. She admired how he seemed to automatically pinpoint details about a person, even liked it, until he was watching her with his arms crossed as if she were inspiring the next character in his latest serial.

“Something on your mind?” she asked him, walking up to the fire and warming her gloved hands over the flame. He put his hands on his hips.

“I could ask you the same, Herald.”

“I’m fine,” Elodie repeated for the second time that afternoon. Varric raised an eyebrow. She resisted an eyeroll, and instead quipped, “Are you finished trying to stare information out of me?”

“Depends. Are you close to cracking, or should I cross my arms for added effect?” he joked back. She looked off at the breach, pretending like she didn’t know what he meant, hoping he couldn’t see her faint smile. Her brow was furrowed, a headache building at her temples. He sighed deeply. “I get it, in a way.”

“Get what?”

“Alright, we’ll play the ignorant game a while longer,” he said, not unkindly. Elodie bit down hard to keep from turning to him and confessing her fears right then, so tender was his tone. He chuckled darkly. “If I may… When we go through something traumatizing, it’s only natural to want to ignore it afterwards. Sometimes you can’t deal with it right away.”

Elodie glanced back at the dwarf, assessing with a sharp eye whether or not he was speaking from experience. With authors it was hard to tell. He continued when she looked away again.

“I will say this,” he murmured, his voice soothing and low. “It will help you to tell someone about it. Doesn’t matter who. Doesn’t have to be me. Doesn’t even have to be today. But I think you should let someone throw you a line. Alright? Just think on it.”

After a moment in silence, one that Elodie decided was a comfortable one, she nodded. She looked back at him, blinking slightly at the smoke from the fire they stood near. She could smell parchment and spiced cologne, a decidingly comforting scent, and she quelled an urge to reach out to clap him on the shoulder. Instead, she nodded again.

“Thank you Varric.”

“No problem.”

* * *

 

She sought out the Seeker, of all people, but convinced herself it was only to debrief after having taken her to Therinfal. Elodie’s decision to take on the Templars was justified in Cassandra’s eyes, and honestly Elodie felt a deep warmth towards her.

“Are you busy?” Elodie asked, watching the way Cassandra hacked at a training dummy with blunt precision. It was intimidating. She preferred to leap out of the fray, to attack from above and away. Cassandra was her balance.

“Not particularly,” she replied, squinting at Elodie over the bright glare of the snow. “But if you attempt to ask me even more personal questions I may find myself suddenly called away.”

“Don’t worry,” Elodie grinned, noticing the way Cassandra watched to see if Elodie could catch she was kidding. “I feel like I’ve tapped you for now.”

The Seeker made a soft disgusted noise in the back of her throat.

“I thought you would be preparing for your visit to the Fallow Mire. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I… not really,” Elodie frowned. She wanted to tell her, but found herself unable to speak on it specifically. “I just wanted to be around other people, I guess.”

“You are surrounded by your advisors, your troops, and now the Templars,” Cassandra reposted. “When are you ever alone?”

“More often than you’d think.”

The Seeker’s eyes widened, taking in Elodie’s stance. Elodie tried, in turn, to ignore the stare by focusing on the training dummy across from them. She wondered if Cassandra had cut so deeply on the right side there because she was feeling worn thin from the envy demon as well.

“May I ask you something?” Cassandra asked, her words clipped and careful.

“It’s only fair, given how much I hound you for information,” Elodie replied with a smirk.

“The envy demon. How did you keep it from taking hold of you?”

In her words, a tinge of admiration, but a greater mark of worry. Elodie shrugged, not used to having strangers be concerned for her.

“I recognized early on that it was going to show me things I didn’t like, try to get me to second guess reality. I just tried to approach it logically, I guess.”

“Logic flies in the face of fear, with most people at least,” Cassandra said. Elodie nodded, looking out towards the green hole in the sky beyond the mountains. “But you are showing yourself to be rather exceptional in that regard. Not many would have reacted as you did… to the breach, the refugees, the apostates, or to the demon. I’m beginning to think you’d take down a dragon without flinching.”

“I don’t know about all that. I think you would’ve made similar choices.” Elodie glanced over, hoping that statement didn’t offend. She glossed over Cassandra’s praise, extremely pleased by it but not enough to admit it aloud.

“I might have. It depends on what it showed you,” the Seeker shrugged.

Blood. Betrayal. Begging. Elodie grit her teeth to keep from saying those things aloud; doing so would make them too tangible.

“None of what it showed me was real,” Elodie sighed, her wall up again before she could stop it from rebuilding itself. Cassandra made a small noise, like a protest cut off by a throat clear, but Elodie ignored it. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Let us pray that you can remember that if the memories begin to weigh on you.”

“I’ll keep my guard up,” Elodie said, smiling over at Cassandra in a way that made the Seeker purse her lips and turn back to the training dummy. Elodie couldn’t decide if it was a trick of the breach-light, or if Cassandra had turned slightly pink from the honesty between them.

“Would you care to talk about something else?” she asked after striking a particularly brutal blow with the pommel of her sword to the head of the dummy.

“I can ask you a ridiculously personal question, if you’d prefer,” Elodie said. Cassandra made another exasperated noise, but then in the wake of silence following she seemed more annoyed.

“I’m waiting, Herald.”

“Oh you were…” Elodie stifled a laugh and scrambled to find a question suitably light and yet telling. “If you were a drink, what kind of drink would you be?”

“I feel as though this is a bad riddle. What are the constraints of such a question?”

“There’s no right answer, and it’s not a riddle,” Elodie smiled. “It’d tell me a little bit about you, in a way.”

“Why do you wish to know?”

“I’m just curious. Like, for me, I’d say…” she mused a moment, biting her lip. “I’d say spiced rum.”

“That’s awfully specific,” Cassandra inclined her head.

“I feel as if it suits me. I seem easygoing at first, but too much of me can leave you tired and sometimes sick to your stomach.”

“Fitting.”

Elodie laughed, then waved at the Seeker, who sighed elaborately.

“Must it be alcoholic?” Cassandra asked.

“No. Any drink is fine.”

“Then I would say… blackberry tea.”

“Like the summer drink? Cold brewed?” Elodie smiled. “Sweet, but not too sweet?”

“I… suppose.”

Cassandra slashed at the training dummy, causing Elodie to flinch and laugh from the surprise.

“Aren’t you going to elaborate?” she asked the Seeker.

“No.” Cassandra raised her sword but paused, glancing Elodie’s way with just the hint of a smile at her lips. “I happen to like riddles more than metaphors.”

She brought down three quick consecutive strikes on the dummy, and Elodie decided now would be a good time to leave.

* * *

 

It got dark too quickly, casting shadows along the inner alcoves of the Chantry at Haven. Elodie found herself wandering before she went to bed, listening to everyone fussing amongst themselves.

She used to do this around her clan when she couldn’t sleep. She’d go walking among the Aravels and listen out for life beyond herself. A reminder that she was not her thoughts, that everyone was busy feeling something, was something she craved. A reminder to get out of her head was what she needed.

Walking around Haven was very similar. It was nice, hearing Mother Giselle speaking in low tones about healing mixtures and watching as runners bore documents back and forth between scouts and advisors. It lacked the familiarity her clan had left her with, but it was still very nice.

Were Chantries always like this? Is this why people came to them? She supposed that if she didn’t have as big a family, if she wasn’t always on the go, and if she hadn’t been born an elf-- the Chantry would have been something she would have sought in another life.

“Herald,” Josephine called out, making Elodie flinch. As if she hadn’t realized her voice would carry in the quiet evening hours, Josephine touched her fingertips to her lips in surprise. “Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine,” Elodie said, trying to force a smile.

“I’m surprised to see you still awake.”

“You’re up as well,” Elodie replied, tilting her head a bit.

“Yes but,” Josephine hesitated. “Have you slept since Therinfal Redoubt?”

“No,” Elodie said, the truth flowing out immediately. She regretted it, seeing as how Josephine’s face immediately tightened as she calculated the amount of hours the Herald must have gone without rest since the mission. “I mean, I’ve rested of course,” Elodie added.

“I would feel more at ease about your journey tomorrow if you got some good rest before setting out. Should I send a request for a sleeping draught? Some tea perhaps?” Josephine had her tablet poised, the candle casting warm swatches of pale light onto her dark skin. Elodie smiled despite herself, softening. This Josephine, the real Josephine, would never be badgered into confessing lies. She would never be put behind bars, Elodie would make sure of it.

“I’ll take some tea with you, if you have a moment.”

“Oh. Um, my sincerest apologies for not being clear,” she replied, looking slightly confused, “but I would have some sent to your cabin. As it is, I’m actually on my way to a meeting with a visiting dignitary.”

“More Orlesian complainers? At this hour?” Elodie tried not to let the annoyance in her voice cut as sharply as it was meant to. Josephine seemed willfully oblivious.

“Try not to think of their comments as complaints so much as pieces to a larger puzzle,” the Antivan diplomat said, shifting her weight from hip to hip as she gestured with her quill. “It makes gathering them together much easier on the mind.”

“When my cousins and I did puzzles together, I lost at least a piece each time,” Elodie said. Josephine put on an air of exaggerated exasperation, her sigh quickly followed by a smirk.

“I was the one who gathered missing pieces from under the furniture after my brothers were done.”

“I knew you were overqualified to be our diplomat,” Elodie inclined her head, smirking, and Josephine waved with her quill at the air between them.

“Anyway, Lord and Lady Dufraise were expected two days ago. However, they’ve only just arrived, delayed by harsh weather further south, so I need to see about giving them a brief tour to buy us time in arranging where they will stay.” Josephine hesitated, her mouth quirking guiltily. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so caught up in this that I came off rather rudely just now. If you give me a moment to find a steward, maybe I can take a break and come sit with you for a moment.”

“No, don’t worry. That won’t be necessary.”

“Are you certain? It wouldn’t-”

“I appreciate the attempt to dote on me,” Elodie said. “But you needn’t trouble yourself.” She hoped that looking up through her lashes would put an end to this conversation. Normally that gesture would make Josephine bring a hand to her face in order to hide her pleased smile. But this time the diplomat hesitated. It must have been Elodie’s tone. Before she could speak, silver bars flashed before her face, glinting light off of her brown skin. Elodie flinched backwards despite herself.

_“Just tell me what it is that the Herald wishes for me to confess to! Please, I beg of you!”_

“I… won’t keep you any longer. Give my regards to our guests,” Elodie stammered, leaving before Josephine could open her mouth to protest or ask what was wrong.

* * *

 

She was pacing. Nerves had kept her from closing her eyes even after she’d turned the lamps low. The moon outside was distracting, sure, but nothing she hadn’t slept easily through before. Elodie used to sleep under the stars every night, their pinpricks of light laying across her body like a blanket. Here, she felt caged. Pent-up. Nervous.

She’d passed by Varric on the way to her hut, and he’d invited her to sit with him by the fire a spell. He was writing, she noticed, and in the end she didn’t want to interrupt. She had moved on. Afterwards, she’d bumped into Leliana, who updated her on the status of lyrium availability. Elodie had nodded, left. Sera had found her strolling around, invited her to ‘stop being stuffy’ and have a drink with her. She’d seemed peeved when Elodie had refused, but maybe that was her worried face? No matter, Elodie had told her she couldn’t and Sera had left it at that. She wasn’t one to push.

Now, Elodie was wishing she’d engaged any or all of them. They’d have been a good distraction. What had Cassandra said? She wasn’t alone, even when it felt like she was.

It couldn’t be helped now. She picked up a quiver of arrows, slung it and her bow across her back, and ventured out into the night, determined to forget the best way she knew how.

* * *

 

Elodie woke up feeling dizzy, drawn-thin, her dreams having been washed in sickly green and red. She rolled out of bed with difficulty, needing water. Slow, so slow this morning. In the corners of her mind, there were swashes of burgundy, stains against her mind’s eye. When she had finally passed out after hours of archery practice, the nightmares were less intense than she’d expected. But then again, she’d been prepared for the worst.

She’d seen Cullen die again, watched Josephine panic against the silver bars. But then Cullen had been alive again, in his own cage, pacing with fists clenched at his side. He’d spat vitriol in his words, but there had been resignation. He’d been resigned to die, and to go out spitting. It had hurt to watch him, worse than Elodie had expected. He’d seemed… haunted, somehow. By more than just his cage.

Elodie had moved past him in the dream, abandoning both him and Josephine, and had watched as bodies burned, as blood magic crackled through a thick fog of red lightning. It had been less terrifying than she’d expected, but still unsettling enough to put her off her appetite completely upon waking. Sighing, trying to remember that she was awake now, Elodie began to layer her scout’s armor in preparation for the day.

On a whim, hoping to take a walk on the frozen lake perhaps before the day broke fully, Elodie moved to where she knew the troops slept outside the gate. People were having breakfast, talking amicably over campfires by their tents. Templars were speaking with new recruits, and Elodie could hear the horsemaster shout something about the stables being mucked. It was still early yet. The green shadow of the breach above them was canceled out slightly by the pink hues of the sunrise over the snow. Elodie rubbed under her eyes with a leather-clad hand and straightened her back. Still sore, but less so.

“Herald,” someone called as she crossed into the open. She turned, her listening face set. It wasn’t who she expected to be jogging over, which caused her to put out a hand and steady herself on the doorframe. Cullen paused in his approach, narrowing his eyes at her slump. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.” Elodie swallowed hard and took a step away from the door, forcing herself to refuse its assistance. Hopefully Cullen wouldn’t be able to see how fast her heart was beating; Elodie imagined her quickening pulse was obvious to anyone glancing at her neck. She pulled her wild curls further in front of it, suppressing a frown. “Commander. Anything to report?”

“No, not at present, I just… good morning,” he said, almost like he was realizing belatedly that he hadn’t greeted her. It was endearing. Elodie felt her pulse calm down, righting itself into a slow and confident rhythm.

“Good morning Cullen.”

“I was wondering,” he paused, glancing away. “I haven’t seen Cole since you allowed him to stay at Haven.”

“Odd. I can look for him today, if you like.”

“It’s not urgent. But I _was_ wondering, while I have you,” he repeated, shifting his hips as if the question made him uncomfortable, “if you could elaborate on the debt you owe him?”

“Beg pardon?” Elodie tried not to bristle; Maker, it was difficult not to.

“You said he was trustworthy yesterday,” Cullen elaborated slowly, carefully. His tone was soft, as if he were trying to reassure her that no harm was meant in his inquiry. “You said that he helped you out with the situation at Therinfal Redoubt. What did he do for you exactly?”

“It’s complicated,” she said, moving away from the door, walking away from where Cullen had already gathered some of the troops to scrimmage for early morning exercises. He followed her, but unlike Cassandra he didn’t put an arm out to make sure she didn’t waver. That small sign of trust, that he wouldn’t reach for her unless she asked, did wonders in calming her flared temper.

They turned to walk up the steps together, Elodie’s morning promenade on the frozen lake destined for another time. Elodie sighed, continuing, “I’m not sure I understand what all happened myself. I was in my own mind, I’m pretty certain of that. I was being… assessed. No matter what I said, it took something from me. But I couldn’t just keep quiet.”

Kind of like now.

She bit her lip, hard, and glanced up. Cullen was watching her, his eyes dark.

“You went up against an envy demon. That’s an intense experience, even if you’re mentally prepared for it.”

“Do you know much about demons?” she asked, her voice soft as he fell into step beside her once more.

“More than I’d care to elaborate on at the moment, yes.”

“I see.” Elodie nodded to Threnn, who was holding up a filled requisitions order in thanks. Behind her, she could see Leliana meeting with three separate messengers, not to be disturbed. “Maybe later, you could draw up another lecture for me?”

Cullen chuckled, a dry little laugh, and she resisted grinning at him like an idiot. Elodie smiled at her boots instead, trying to remember what they had been speaking of before he laughed. She walked up to the Chantry door, then turned to her commander, remembering.

“You asked what debt I owed Cole, but I don’t see it in those terms. Maybe in your experience, spirits or demons or whatever he is are not to be trusted. That’s fair enough.”

Was that his jaw clenching? Did he want to say something? Elodie paused, allowing him time to speak, but Cullen did not. She pressed on.

“But I do not feel that Cole is of that ilk. Cole was only there to press me forward, to see past the visions envy showed me.”

“He was there? In your mind?”

“Yes. And he only wanted to help.” She was sure she felt a warmth, like a smile under the brim of a hat nearby. She sighed deeply, eager to change the subject. “I’d like to meet with the war council in a bit. Have you eaten already?”

“I- no, not yet,” he faltered, his gaze dipping away. “Have you?”

“No, not yet,” Elodie mimicked, smiling slightly. His eyes softened as he brought them back to her, like he was grateful she was still here, still smiling, was that her imagination or …

A hand at his throat. A glint of steel. She flinched internally, wanting to reach out to stop it from happening just like she’d wanted to reach out to the vision in her mind. Blood. She was too late.

It’s not real, she reminded herself. It was never real. She hadn’t reacted in her mind and she didn’t think she’d reacted now, thank the Maker. But unlike the illusion of Cullen, who had stood there with an impassive blank stare, the real thing was looking at her now with unconcealed concern. She must have flinched or frowned, given something away. He brought up a hand to run his fingers through his hair as he spoke.

“Herald, if it’s not too presumptive of me-”

“Don’t let me keep you any longer, I know you’re very busy,” she forced out. “Make sure you get something to eat. We’ve a long day ahead of us.” She turned, opening the door, and left Cullen standing there with one hand on the hilt of his sword and a bewildered look on his face. She prayed he couldn’t see how shaky her fingers were as she clenched them into fists and moved towards the war room.

* * *

 

Elodie was leaving Minaeve’s research table when she heard low voices. It had been a very long day, one where she’d agreed to set out for the Fallow Mire in the morning to see about finding some missing troops, and part of her was certain she was hearing things in her fatigued state. She must be, for how unlikely a thing it was. It sounded like Varric speaking to Cassandra. Willingly.

“Oh, come on,” came a small whisper.

No. It wasn’t her imagination. Carefully, Elodie moved to the left, where the secluded dark offered an alcove away from listening ears. Too bad for them that hers were rather large, concealed normally by masses of voluminous curls. She tucked the strands behind them as best she could, honing in on the words.

“I’m telling you, Seeker,” the dwarf breathed, “you need to talk to her.”

“And I am telling you, Varric, that I will not question her resolve unless I see more proof of it breaking.”

“She’s still a person, Cassandra.”

Cassandra was silent.

“She’s intimidating, I get it. Dalish demonslayer, marked by the Maker, survivor of the Conclave.” He paused, and Cassandra didn’t argue. Varric continued, his voice a breath of a whisper. “But underneath all of that, she’s just a person. To go through what she’s been through…” he trailed off purposefully.

Elodie put her hand out, leaning on the cool chantry wall for support. Varric was worried about her? Questioning her? Was it out of friendship, or suspicion? She’d tried so hard not to give anything away when he’d pressed her to talk about Therinfal Redoubt, but here he was, still thinking she didn’t have it under control. She gripped her hand into a fist and strode forward, her feet echoing on the stone floor.

“While I appreciate your concern,” Elodie said, her voice much less steady aloud than it was in her head. Varric seemed to flinch as if she’d struck out at him, while Cassandra alternated between standing at attention of the Herald and glaring at the dwarf to her right. Elodie stared them both down, hoping they couldn’t see her trembling in the dark. “I’m handling what I’ve been through on my own.”

“Ah. Your Worship.” Varric’s tone seemed to hint that he was less than happy to have been interrupted, but after a begrudging sigh he attempted to continue. “I never meant to imply that-”

“Cassandra,” Elodie said to the Seeker, cutting Varric off. “I’ll be taking you, Sera, and Vivienne with me to the Fallow Mire tomorrow.”

“As you wish,” Cassandra answered.

Elodie left before she could make eye contact with the dwarf. She could guess at his expression: he’d be upset, he had to be. She didn’t want to see it. She turned on her heel and forced herself to walk away with as much grace as possible. As she pushed open the doors of the Chantry, she heard one of them heave a weary sigh, but she couldn’t be sure who it was.

* * *

 

That night, she snuck out again. Was it technically sneaking out if nobody cared to notice you were gone anyway? Bathed in moonlight, Elodie fired shot after shot onto targets set up by the frozen lake, until her arms were sore and her chest exhausted from holding her breath.

Her last arrow flew wild, skittering out with an eerie noise across the layers of frozen water before her. She shuddered, able to see her breath coming in puffs of vapor from her lungs. She was alive. This was real. She could probably sleep a few hours if she tried.

* * *

 

“You look like death,” Sera said, her horse falling in line with a whinny by Elodie’s. Elodie resisted an eye roll.

“All the better to scare off the Avvar.”

Sera snorted at Elodie’s quip, and were it not for a sigh from Vivienne the whole matter would’ve been done with.

“Sera, dear, you could try using a touch more tact when expressing concern for someone,” Vivienne called from where she was riding sidesaddle, the midday sun glinting off of her elegant Orlesian headpiece.

“Mmm. No. Then I’d be lying.”

“Suggesting is not lying,” Vivienne sniffed. Elodie was glad that the enchanter was riding behind; otherwise, she would highly disapprove of the helpless smile stretching across her face. Sera, however, noticed plenty.

“So you’re telling me,” she said, shifting in her saddle to gently comb through her horse’s mane as she spoke, “that if the Herald grew whiskers out her face and walked around shimmying like some kind of terror, I shouldn’t tell her outright that she’s awful. That’s what you’re saying. We’re to live with a whiskered dancing leader hobbling around frightening folks. That’s what you want.”

Elodie turned just in time to see Vivienne’s eyebrow raise just a tad.

“You remind me of a grandchild of one of the councilmembers.”

“How lovely,” Sera replied, drawing out her words in a singsong.

“Quite,” Vivienne snipped. “He’s four years old and already using the same circular nonsense logic that you are. Remarkable, don’t you think?”

“Oh lighten up,” Sera said, leaning over to where Elodie was hiding a smile. “I’m just sayin’, she’s lucky she only looks like death.”

* * *

 

That night, after a long ride, Elodie almost wished she didn’t have her own tent. It had felt so good to be around others in such close proximity, even if she didn’t admit it. Her personal quarters had one advantage: they afforded her a lot of pacing room. How she had the energy to pace, she had no idea. It must’ve been the leaves she’d bought off Dennet, just some herbs to help her keep sharp, like strong tea but without the brewing. Chew then spit out. Don’t sleep. Good stuff.

She listened out for the scouts returning to start their watch, heard Vivienne placing her final wards on the perimeter before retiring to her own tent for the night, Cassandra and Sera taking over third watch. Shit. Elodie stopped pacing long enough to slam her gloved hands against an imaginary table. She wouldn’t be able to sneak past the wards and the Seeker and the Jenny in order to get out a few stress-volleys.

Even if she _could_ sneak out, they were in known bandit territory, so she might find herself with actual targets that would wake the rest of her party to rally beside her. She didn’t know if she could explain what she’d had to do in order to sleep the last few nights, since she was barely sleeping at all. People would worry. Correction, people would worry _further_. The thought turned her stomach. She would have to find another way to force herself to sleep.

She always had the option of meditation. Her father had been good at it, had always calmed himself with soothing moments of silence in the morning and in the evenings before a meal. Aided digestion and therefore peaceful rest, he’d often said. Elodie sighed and sat cross legged in the middle of her tent, by her bed roll. She hoped her father was right.

In the flickering lamplight, she tried to clear her mind, to let it wander only to pleasant things. The sound of a waterfall in the distance helped, kept her mind distracted in the cleanest way, and she began to feel her shoulders relax. Her back was so sore, she tilted her head to the side and heard her neck pop. She bet Josephine would shudder at the sound.

Her thoughts ventured in the direction of her advisors, unbidden.

Josephine had such dedication, was always working on something at her desk or as she wandered around the keep. But what did she do to relax? Elodie imagined she listened to music, or maybe read books by a crackling fire. She’d said to Elodie that she hated the cold. Maybe she relaxed in the sun like a housecat, soaking up the rays as much as possible. Unlike her Antivan counterpart, Leliana was the one who seemed more at home in Haven, more at ease in the dark.

How did Leliana unwind, though? For all her efforts, surely she had to have moments of calm? Elodie smirked. She wasn’t sure the inquisition’s spymaster ever did. But she thought to herself that something to unwind Leliana would be solitary and warm, safe, like a bath in a locked room with very small space. It would have to be somewhere all the exits were visible, somewhere she could undress from the day in peace. There would be candles, but not many. Leliana seemed comfortable enough in the dark. She wore her secrets like a protective cloak about her shoulders, whereas people like Cullen preferred literal armor.

Cullen. Did he ever relax either? Elodie frowned. She would have said no, before. But over the last couple of days, she hadn’t been so sure. He’d seemed almost gentle since she’d basically interviewed him about himself outside where the troops practiced tirelessly. The looks in the war room, the calm tone of voice he used with her contrasting deeply with the tones he used on Chancellor Roderick, the way he’d tried to alleviate his worries about Cole while still respecting her: these added up to a more complex soldier than she’d originally thought him to be. It was a weird thing to reconcile. She told herself it was his duty to be attentive, nothing more, and tried to regain her daydream.

Normally, she’d say for someone in the military, relaxing would consist of something ritualistic, like cleaning. Cullen probably enjoyed taking the time to polish each part of his armor until it gleamed, but for some reason she could also see him skipping rocks across a lake, his shoulders unburdened of his fur, his forearms devoid of metal. She could see him laughing. She wondered absently if the hairs on his arm were soft or coarse, and she felt her lips part automatically as she imagined running her fingertips down his skin from his shoulders to his wrists.

Her eyes snapped open. This was the opposite of meditation. She felt warm all over, tingly, distracted, reminded of something she had suppressed. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t considered him before, if she hadn’t deliberately probed him with questions to see if he was interested in her as well, if she hadn’t had inappropriate thoughts about him.

He watched her sometimes, but not in the way Threnn watched an elf, or the way Varric watched a potential character inspiration. Cullen watched her as one does a halla they don’t want to frighten, kind of in secretive awe. She wondered if he knew he was doing it. Maybe she should ask him the next time they were alone.

That most certainly was not a thought to be entertained. The next time they were alone, when were they ever alone! She had compounding responsibilities, and more importantly Cullen had their growing army to guide. New recruits arrived daily from the Hinterlands and the Storm Coast. Cullen was up to his elbows in training schedules, supply requests, not to mention the missions that she herself sent his troops on.

_But you indulged once before._

Elodie opened her eyes, shocked by her own subconscious. No, thoughts of the Commander in this regard would not do. She rolled to her feet, turned the light low, and forced herself to climb into her bed roll. Sleep, she told herself. She just needed to sleep.

* * *

 

She was back in the demon-altered version of her mind, reliving it again. She rolled her eyes at the situation, at the sheer fatigue she felt even in her dreams. Would she ever get a clean night’s rest?

Knowing it wasn’t real helped a bit, but her mind was swimming and it was hard to remain conscious of her emotions in a place like this. One minute she reminded herself that it was a lie, but the next minute she might forget.

Red and green and gray, her world was comprised of warring colors that blended into black at the edges of her vision. Each footfall left a hole bursting behind her, ready to knock her off her feet. She had to go forward, had to keep moving, demons at her back hurting others in her wake. She had to keep moving and just hope the dream would end itself without turning too nasty.

“Please! Just tell me what she wishes for me to confess!”

The familiar cry rang out, and Elodie forced herself to stay turned around. If she didn’t look at Josephine, she wouldn’t remember in the morning, she told herself. No visuals means no hallucinations. The screams, however, and the gut-wrenching crunches that followed, were somehow worse. Gasping, Elodie turned to help her and was confronted with the shadow of her Spymaster.

“So stoic. So brave. A true Herald.”

“This isn’t real.”

“Are you telling me?”

“I refuse to indulge in this,” Elodie scowled. “I defeated you. Leave me, demon.”

“There is no demon,” Leliana’s warped voice cooed. “You defeated the demon, you just said so yourself.”

“Then why am I here? Why am I reliving this memory every night?”

As if pulled by her own mind, Elodie glanced down. Her mark was burning, crackling at its edges, opening.

“This thing? My mark?” she whispered.

“You are no mage,” Leliana whispered, her mouth a dripping black maw that began to morph into the snout of a wolf. “Yet you pass through here with ease. Why indeed.”

Blood and gray saliva began to pool from her mouth onto the ground between them. It was grotesque. Elodie shut her eyes against the imagery, but opened them again when she heard a familiar hitching breath. Panicked, she lashed out with her fist, but it did not connect with Leliana’s warped form.

Instead, Cullen grunted, taking the impact of her hit directly on his sternum. Elodie gasped, remorseful and confused. She glanced him over, her hand still on his chest so that she could push him away when he turned on her. He would, she knew, he would turn just like the rest of them.

“Wait, wait. It’s alright,” Cullen whispered, mere inches away. At the sound of his voice, Elodie relaxed. She couldn’t help it.

“Commander.”

“I’m pleased you survived,” he breathed, drawing her close. Had he told her as much before? It felt familiar somehow. She stepped forward without thinking, automatically allowing herself to be gathered into his arms until she was flush against him.

He was devoid of his golden armor, of the black furred cape, and he no longer had a sword to rest his hand on at his hip. He was very human, very warm to the touch. Elodie fought briefly against the embrace, confused and thrumming with unspent energy, but the more she pulled away the warmer he felt from afar.

Guilt gnawed at her. She wanted this. It was no secret here, could not be kept secret here. From the moment she’d teased him about giving her a lecture, she’d wondered what it would be like to get as close as this, with as few layers between their skin as this. She’d tried to forget how she’d thought of him in secret, but it seemed that her mind was not content to let the fantasy go.

Still. There was one thought that comforted her. Nobody had to know what she dreamed, did they? Nobody would see if she explored this small relief, this beautiful lie, right?

She gave up, sick of waiting for an answer from her own mind, and drew her hands eagerly down his forearms as he slipped his arms around her waist.

Soft.

“Cullen.” Barely a breath, an invitation, drunk on the idea that he could protect her, on the idea that she could relax with his arms around her. She drew her length against his, sliding her knee between his legs slowly, trying to get even closer to him.

“If it’s not too presumptive-” he whispered, dipping his head low to brush a warm kiss across her temple. She closed her eyes and shivered, the tremor wracking her body just as his went unearthly still.

She pulled back and refocused on his face, on his eyes, but they were no longer warm and heavy. They were blank pinpricks of light staring straight ahead. Curved talons in his hair from behind, their green and gray sharpness tangling in his blonde curls, yanked his head back and revealed his throat.

“No! Wait, stop! Cullen!”

The terror’s claws ripped through Cullen’s throat just as Elodie screamed and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt to try to yank him out of its grasp. Blood filled her mouth, and despite her revulsion she screamed, taking more of it on her tongue. She thrashed, determined to kill it, to save him if she could-

“Herald! Herald!”

She wound up, pulled back her elbow, then cracked it hard into whoever was atop her. It connected with something decidedly softer than a terror’s skull.

“Damn it all, she punched me in the sogging tit,” an angry voice managed to groan in the background. Elodie felt cloth in her other hand, a fistful of it, and dragged it over her head, throwing whatever was in her grasp above her and over. She kicked out with her feet, but this time she didn’t hit anything.

“Stop this!” a cry, short and hissed. Above her, Cassandra rolled easily into a half-standing position on the other side of the tent, finally shaking herself free of Elodie’s determined grip. She looked winded and upset, but genuine. She was not a shadow of herself. She was real.

“Cassandra, why-”

“Calm down, Herald.”

“Stop calling me that!” Elodie snapped, still confused. She looked around as the tried to catch her breath, saw Sera in the corner near an overturned chest clutching at her ribs. “Stop…”

Her mind was working too quickly, and the rest of her words never reached her lips. She shivered as if she were cold, but the sweat making her curls cling to her forehead were proof she had just been burning up. Sera grunted as she lifted herself, swearing once more under her breath before striding over between the two women.

“Alright, crazypants,” Sera said to Elodie, holding out a hand to signal to Cassandra to stay away. “Is that a better nickname?” She didn’t give Elodie a chance to answer, and instead enunciated slowly, “Stop freaking out on us. We’re in the real world. It’s all good.”

Chest heaving, breath coming too fast, world spinning, Elodie grit her teeth against the familiar phrase.

“Right. Sorry. Please take Cassandra and go inform the troops we’ll be heading out momentarily.”

“And miss this show?”

“Look, I can’t have you-” she let out a small breath, one that felt traitorously like a sob.

“What? Can’t have us see the mighty Mouthpiece of the Maker as a person?” Sera’s disdain was palatable, but when Elodie shot her a flinty gaze the other elf snorted. “We’re people. You’re people. You think we don’t all get nightmares sometimes? You’re marked, sure, but I didn’t think you were fucking touched.”

Elodie huffed a laugh at that, and it seemed to help Cassandra relax. Elodie’s breathing slowed, and she took deeper draws into her lungs to encourage her heart to stop beating as wildly. She looked up, guilt hidden behind a veneer of a frown.

“Did I hurt either of you?”

“No-”

“Yes,” Sera answered over Cassandra, motioning to her chest with a lascivious smile. “My bits were all aflutter when we came in to help, and you tried to punch clear through ‘em.”

Cassandra made a disgusted noise.

“So, next time you have a frigging nightmare,” Sera quipped, “do us a favor and give us a second to put on a breastplate.”

“I’ll try,” Elodie chuckled, and Sera glanced at the Seeker in the corner.

“You two stay here. I’m swiping us some sweet buns. Sweet buns fix everything, don’t they, Sweet Buns?”

Before Cassandra could growl at her, Sera left the tent giggling. In her wake, Cassandra shuffled in the corner and Elodie straightened her nightgown. Her collar had fallen over one shoulder, her blankets were tangled in knots about her feet. Had she thrashed that hard?

Glancing around, she saw the tent was slightly askew, just enough that someone looking for signs of a struggle would see one. Elodie sighed deeply, trying to banish the coppery taste of blood from her tongue. She had felt like crying before, but luckily the thickness that came with tears had subsided back into her throat now. It was a blessing; crying now would only make everything so much worse. She brought her head into her hands, rubbing at her temple to try to smooth away the feeling of Cullen’s lips.

“If I’m not to call you by your title, what shall I call you?”

“What?”

“You said to stop calling you Herald,” Cassandra said softly. Elodie paused, her brow furrowed, and Cassandra added regretfully, “I do not know how else to address you.”

“Do you like being called Seeker all the time?” Elodie asked. “Don’t you ever want to be just Cassandra?”

Cassandra’s expression didn’t change.

“My title is who I am, as much as my name is.”

“Right.” Elodie was about to bring her hands up to rub her eyes when she saw the mark faintly ripple in the center of her left palm. She sighed, dropping her hands to her lap. “I suppose I should accept that as well.”

“Have you been struggling with this lately? Acceptance?” Cassandra asked stiltily. Elodie looked up, smirking despite herself. Cassandra’s eyes narrowed into a piercing gaze. “What?”

“You’re trying to big-sister me right now.”

“I am _not_.”

“Yes you are. Just like Varric told you to.”

“Forgive me, then. I will stop.”

“You’re apologizing?” Elodie frowned. “I was only teasing.”

“Oh? As I recall, the notion of being asked after severely offended you the other night.”

“Ah. Yes. That.” Elodie nodded, biting the inside of her cheek as she remembered. After a minute, she said, “ I acted rashly before. I don’t do the ‘being nurtured’ thing very well, I’m afraid.”

“Thank the Maker.” Cassandra sat beside her on the crumpled blankets. She had a set of red welts by her collarbone in the shape of fingers, and Elodie winced at the sight. Cassandra, however, seemed unperturbed. “I don’t do well with ‘being nurturing’, so we’re evenly matched.”

“I suppose so,” Elodie said, trying to find a smile. She couldn’t. “I’m sorry I attacked you.”

“You didn’t. You were fighting off something else in the dream, and I put myself in the way.”

“Did I-” Elodie swallowed hard. “Was I speaking?”

“Yes,” Cassandra said, deliberately not looking at Elodie. She examined her fingernails, her expression stony. “You called Commander Cullen’s name. Said the word ‘no’ several times. I can only assume something bad in your dream either happened to him or by his hand.”

The last part of the sentence  felt cold, like Cassandra was unwilling to place any emotion on such an implication.

“The Commander is a complete gentleman, in real life and otherwise,” Elodie said immediately, feeling a loyal surge of warmth in her core at the thought. Cassandra looked up with eyebrows raised, waiting for further explanation. Elodie faltered. “He… was hurt. In my dream.”

“I see.” Cassandra rested her forearms on her knees, turning her attention to the other side of the tent as they mulled this over in silence for a moment.

“Did I wake anybody else?” Elodie asked after a while.

“A few of our scouts, but they’re very light sleepers so that’s not a surprise. Vivienne was on watch, so she went to do damage control. She’s good at that. I was determined to let you fight it out.” She sat up straighter, stretching her back. “That is, until you started screaming.”

“Ah.”

“The other side of camp hasn’t woken up yet. But I must ask you, Her-” Cassandra paused, thinking.

“Elodie is fine you know,” she said, her voice a bit sharper than she’d meant for it to be. “It is my name, after all.”

“ _Elodie_ , then.” Cassandra took a steeling breath, as if she had just practiced a new move on the training dummy that she was not comfortable with. “I must ask that you do what Varric suggested. Please tell me what you saw, and tell me what I can do to help you get past it.”

The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on her, and yet Cassandra wore such a serious expression that Elodie cleared her throat and felt compelled to speak.

“It’s nothing. Just dark things envy showed me to try to make me break. I knew they weren’t real then, I know they’re not real now,” Elodie answered, shaking her head and crossing her arms. The tips of her ears were cold, but she resisted wrapping herself in a blanket like a child trying to escape the monsters under the bed. “But it resurfaces at night, what I saw back in Therinfal. I saw you all in my mind. I saw a future where I become a bloody ruler of the Inquisition, a ruler that forces confessions and sacrifices people for blood magic. I saw a future where I was completely _not_ myself.” Elodie huffed at the simplicity of it when said out loud. “It was the future destined for us if envy had taken hold of me, if I had let it possess me. And instead of dying when I killed envy, this vision just… stayed.”

Elodie looked down at her hand.

“Sometimes our wounds from battles such as this aren’t visible immediately,” Cassandra said slowly. “We pretend like we’re alright for a time. But not all of our demons are literal ones waiting to possess our minds.”

“You’re very good at the metaphor thing, for someone who doesn’t like them.”

“I’m going to ignore that.”

They waited in comfortable silence for a time, listening to the camp slowly coming to groggy life outside the tent behind them. It must have been close to morning, at least. Elodie sighed, the words finally coming.

“I’m trying my best, you know. To be what you all want me to be, what the Inquisition needs me to be. But the way people look at me is confusing,” Elodie stated, her voice resolute. “If they don’t realize I’m supposed to be the Herald, which _I_ don’t even know if I am,” she looked pointedly at Cassandra, who narrowed her eyes, “then they assume I’m someone to be ignored. If they do realize I’m supposed to be the Herald, every move is evaluated for weakness. I can’t win. It makes me feel like envy never left, like I’m not in control.”

“Do you remember what the Revered Mother said to you in Val Royeaux?” Cassandra asked after a pause.

“Besides the whole, ‘we still don’t want your help’ bullshit?”

“She said that sometimes it’s not about betting on a winning horse.”

“I don’t know that that’s-”

“Do not let the idea of ‘winning’ consume you, essentially. These sorts of things we cannot physically fight, no matter how much we try,” Cassandra sighed. “It would make life so much easier if we could.”

“Mmm. Well in lieu of being able to conquer the doubts,” Elodie mumbled, “do you have any advice for me so that I can live with them?”

“Continue to purge the wound of the poison, I suppose. Think of your insecurities as something you need to let scar over thicker. Eventually your doubts will heal.”

“Again with the metaphors,” she smirked, and Cassandra rolled her eyes as if she were trying not to seem pleased with herself.

“Did I miss the touching moment?” Sera broke in, making the Seeker flinch. The elf’s arms were heavy-laden with at least a dozen honey-glazed buns.

“Where did you get those!” Cassandra demanded.

“Stashed some in Madame de Frig’s caravan of personal supplies. She says to tell you it’s ‘all under control dahling’,” she mocked, holding two sweet rolls up to her chest as she swayed her hips.

“I’ll take one of those,” Elodie said, holding her arm up. Sera threw it over, the bun making a satisfying little pop as it found Elodie’s palm.

“Could you imagine these, grenade-style?” Sera mused. “Brilliant. Honey sticks to you, sticks to the ground, sticks you in place. We got us some bees, why not the honey to match? Here Cassandra.”

“If you throw it at me, I will end you.”

The sweet bun hit Cassandra’s shoulder with a splat, glancing off and bouncing twice in the dirt of the floor before it was stomped underfoot by the vengeful Seeker. As the dawn’s rays kissed the shadows inside the tent, Elodie smiled despite herself. She hadn’t slept well, but she had slept. She could get through the Fallow Mire mission, even if this kept up the entire trip. Her party would make sure of it.

* * *

 

Elodie had to admit, she was pleased with herself. Not only had she found the missing troops unharmed, but she had lit them a path to walk back by and had even secured an agent for the Inquisition while out in the swamp. It had messed with her motivation a bit, seeing so many blighted corpses lying face-down in the water, but it was getting easier to stomach such things. She tried not to think about what that meant for her future endeavors, and just set out to complete her mission at hand.

After a scrap with the Avvar, she was a bit worse for wear and her energy levels dipped harshly in the middle of the day, but she was getting by with the last few chewable leaves-- and from the occasional nap sitting upright on her horse. The nightmares were occurring regularly, but she had begun to notice a trend in them. She’d even started to combat them with mindful thinking.

For instance, if she fought to watch Josephine behind bars, she wouldn’t have to hear the demons consume her, and the vision of her begging was infinitely better than the sound of her being eaten alive. If Elodie made harsh eye contact with the shadow shaped like Leliana, the figure would pace like a caged animal and most likely not turn into the Commander. In this way, she could control her dreams a bit more easily.

The only problem was Cullen. If the Commander _did_ end up making an appearance, Elodie usually fought herself awake. She’d tried many different ways of avoiding him, dealing with him, but the dream always turned out the same. There was no pattern where he was concerned, only his violent death. It was maddening.

If the dreams ever progressed that far, the next morning she went to Cassandra for a spar. No questions asked, the Seeker would fight Elodie as often as she wished. To her credit, Elodie was getting good at finding weak points in her friend’s guard, but she still hated being up close. The practice time was only good for knocking some sense back into herself, she often thought.

The returning party reached Haven shortly before dusk, just in time for dinner after days of travel. Cassandra told Elodie to take her time getting readjusted to Haven, knowing full well she intended to summon a war council immediately. Elodie could see the look of fatigued concentration on her companion’s face, and she nodded.

“In the morning, then,” Elodie said, bidding her goodnight. Cassandra smiled, bowed slightly, and went off to her chambers. Turning, Elodie almost sent both her and Varric sprawling.

“Woah there.”

“You!” Elodie said a bit too quickly, a bit too loudly. Varric looked like he wanted to laugh, but was afraid of how she might react. Elodie shook her head. “I mean, I’m glad it’s you. I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?” the dwarf laughed, as if the notion were ridiculous.

“For being harsh. Before, when you were trying to help with Cassandra-”

Varric held up a hand, stopping Elodie’s words.

“You don’t have to worry about it. We’re good.”

“We are?”

“Yeah. What, you thought I’d be mad because you were trying to keep a stiff upper lip?” Varric chuckled. “I should be the one apologizing. I trust you to know your own limits.”

“Can I ask you something personal, Varric?”

“You want to talk about me?”

“Well, kind of,” Elodie wrung her hands in front of her, feeling the mark’s static presence in her palm inadvertently. “More like, I was wondering if you could explain why you were worried in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice quiet. He led her away from a Tranquil bringing a basket of various claws to Minaeve, moving backwards into the side alcove. Elodie sighed.

“Is it my age that makes you worry about me? Or is it that I’m Dalish?”

“Ah.” Varric crossed his arms, drawing in a deep breath as he thought on how to answer. “It’s a bit of both I suppose, but not how you might think.” Elodie blinked, her expression a mask of neutrality. “Age doesn’t constitute competency, and you’ve shown yourself more than competent on the battlefield and off it. But… age can mean that a different perspective is necessary after some traumatizing shit goes down. And your background just makes me wonder if you were used to being more cared for, seeing as you seemed close to your family.”

“I see.”

“Look, if we’re being completely honest, you seemed worn down. I just want to help.”

“My clan and I are close,” she said, her cheeks warming just slightly. “But they still don’t dote like this.”

“Ah. Well, just remember that I’m a ridiculous liar and you’ll feel better soon enough,” he replied.

Elodie barked a laugh.

“Are all writers as subvertive as you are?” she teased.

“Only the really good ones,” Varric chuckled. After a beat, he added, “It will get easier, you know.”

The phrase clawed at Elodie’s core, left her feeling breathless. Did he mean the dreams, or witnessing the violence of war? Varric patted her forearm.

“Come on. Let me buy you a warm drink. It’s colder than Maferath’s balls out here.”

The dwarf began walking as Elodie snorted. She followed, hoping whatever it was he bought her would help coax her to sleep.

* * *

 

She’d forgone hot whiskey with honey, which had been Varric’s recommendation. She wasn’t a big fan of alcohol at the best of times, and tonight she knew it wasn’t a good idea.

“Oh come on. Not even to keep you warm at night?” he’d goaded, and she’d just laughed.

It had sounded delicious, but the weariness in her bones felt suspicious once she sat down at the tavern counter. She didn’t want to get complacent and dream even deeper; the nightmares were already difficult enough to wake herself from. She had sipped warm herbal tea instead, reminding herself that relaxing was fine, as long as she could wake herself up later if she needed to.

After an hour of idle chatter, she started to divulge more about the dreams. About the people in them. After two hours, she opened up about all of the imagery, only omitting the part where Cullen kissed her before he died. That felt weirdly private, even though she did talk about him being without his armor. Varric listened, occasionally grunted or hummed, and finally offered advice.

“Seems like they’re very vivid stress dreams, but not attempted demonic possessions,” Varric said, sipping at his ginger beer. “Not like I’m the expert.”

“Right,” Elodie said softly. “Not dreaming though… I’d take that every once in a while.”

“You say that now, but again, I’m not the person to give the best advice to you here.” Varric set his stein down and shrugged. “I’d ask Chuckles about it later if you’re worried.”

“You seem to have a nickname for everyone,” Elodie grinned, ignoring how he’d given her essentially no answers. “Got one for me yet?”

“Besides ‘Miracle’?” The dwarf smirked even as she flinched at the word. “Not yet.”

“I’d love something that _doesn’t_ refer to me being chosen by Andraste,” Elodie frowned. “If we’re allowed to choose our own nicknames, that is. Which I suppose we’re not.” She looked up, noticed Varric was watching her with an almost tender expression. “What is it?”

“Oh nothing. It’s just…” he sighed. “You’ve taken on a lot since you fell from the hole in the sky, and you don’t seem to have had much time to process it, right? What do you do?”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You don’t go hack and slash like the Seeker. You also don’t bury yourself in your work like Curly. And you’re not distracted by visiting nobles like Ruffles. Your dreams could be a reflection of that lack of an outlet.”

“I go on missions whenever I can,” Elodie protested, even while she knew he was right. “I read everything I come into contact with, have been trying to bring back adequate research components for the Inquisition-” she cut herself off at his stare, raising her mug of tea to her lips. “I guess I just try to keep busy,” she finished lamely. Her hobbies had fallen away from her, come to think of it. She hadn’t indulged in something purely for the sake of her own happiness since she’d fallen from the Breach.

“What was your life like, before the Conclave?” Varric asked.

Elodie paused, remembering the smell of earth and the sound of running water, the bustle of city markets and the feeling of being held. She shrugged, not answering him.

“I’m willing to bet that someone as smart as you had a job, or at the very least responsibilities.”

She nodded.

“Had you seen anyone die before you fell out of the Fade?”

She nodded again.

“Had you killed anyone before?”

Elodie paused, then slowly shook her head.

Varric took a long, slow drink from his stein. He exhaled as he sat it down again, half-empty. “That’ll do it, then. Even excluding everything else you’ve seen so far, when you’re forced to make tough decisions, when peoples’ lives are on the line, that sticks with you.”

“I suppose so,” she admitted, twirling her mug in a slow circle.

“If it makes you feel any better, I get similar dreams about some of my books.” Elodie looked over with a dubious glare and Varric laughed. “It’s true! Okay well, maybe not to the same extent…”

After that the conversation grew steadily lighter and lighter; Varric did most of the talking, which probably contributed to that. He shared about the trouble he was having with his publisher and hinted at some new scenes in his most popular serial. She excused herself only when the bard left and the background noise turned to cleaning. Varric parted ways with her and meandered in the direction of his lodging, looking as if the conversation had done him some good as well.

Elodie walked back to her cabin alone, grateful for the frigid air in her lungs in place of the warm tavern atmosphere. She felt lulled, but also sharp. Relaxed, but aware. It was nice, to encapsulate these contradictions. It was the same comfort that being Andrastian brought her as a Dalish elf, or that the snow crunching under her boots while her blood pumped hot in her veins bestowed. She had a sense of togetherness with the world around her, and when she wandered out into the trees she looked up and for once didn’t feel insurmountable pressure.

Sitting on a rock facing away from the vague light Haven cast around itself, looking towards the Frostbacks, Elodie looked up at the blanket of stars in wonder. She wished she had a bedroll she could lay out here, because in this moment she knew she could sleep. If only it would carry on from here, if only she could bring this sentiment into her cabin, which still didn’t even really feel like her own bed-

A sound behind her, someone walking with deliberate, calm steps through the snow. She wondered who it could be, vaguely feeling as though Solas would be the type to visit her when she was most at ease. Like he’d be the one who’d be able to sense that she was in a relaxed place.

“Oh,” came a hushed voice, decidedly not Solas.

Elodie turned, still seated, craning her neck behind her to see. Her heart stopped. Had she fallen asleep? Cullen was here, pausing with his hand rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes avoiding hers.

“Commander,” she blurted as she leapt to her feet.

Her standing up just seemed to make him that much more uncomfortable, though, which was the opposite of what she’d intended. His lips parted like he wanted to say something, his shoulders rolling back as he forced himself to stand straighter.

“No, please sit, I should…” he looked around, as if to steel himself. “I should go.”

“Oh.”

Elodie wasn’t sure why, but her immediate reaction was one of utter disappointment. She hadn’t planned on sitting out here with anyone but herself. And yet Cullen’s presence wouldn’t take away from that.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she said hurriedly.

“That’s very generous of you, but I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he said, his voice slightly strained.

“On what?” Elodie asked, glancing around.

“Your relaxation.”

“I’m not really doing much of anything,” she countered. Least of all relaxing, but she didn’t share that with him. Cullen shifted, obviously uncomfortable.

“Your solitude then.”

“It is peaceful out here, I admit. But that wouldn’t change if you were to stay, you know.”

He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword and tilted his chin down.

“You’re just being kind.”

“Am I really? I feel more like I was being desperate,” she mumbled. She’d meant it jokingly, but her tone was too small, too frail, even to her own ears. She turned her gaze down to his boots, watching him shift his weight to his back hip. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Ignore that, please, Commander.”

He paused, watching her, and Elodie tried to figure out very specifically what she wanted. Part of her, a very strong and selfish part of her, wanted Cullen to stay. She wanted to have him alone, just for a moment. But the other part of her, the voice of reason that had told her to approach envy with logic, surmised that if he didn’t want to stay in the first place it wouldn’t be the same.

“I suppose I don’t have to be anywhere at the moment,” Cullen said carefully, shifting his weight at her side. “That is, if you had something you wished to discuss.”

“I’m sure I could come up with some fun conversational topics,” she said with a faint smile. Before Cullen could answer, she added, “But I don’t want you to agree to something that makes you uncomfortable.”

Elodie paused. She took in the way his gloves were tightening as his hands fisted in what looked like an anxious gesture. Almost like he could tell she was watching, Cullen dropped his hands and straightened his shoulders, as if he were under military-level scrutiny.

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

Elodie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Alright, maybe just slightly _cautious_ ,” Cullen amended. “But only because I make it a point to come out here if I need a moment alone. So to find someone already here, and not just someone, but you… it’s not that it’s unpleasant-”

Elodie felt her eyes widen. His expression seemed to mirror hers.

“No, I mean, it definitely isn’t unpleasant, finding you here,” Cullen stammered. “Definitely not.”

“Are you sure?” Elodie asked, a hint of laughter on the edge of her voice.

“Yes. I promise.”

Elodie blinked, sending her gaze away from Cullen’s gaze and down to his gorget. His throat worked like he was swallowing, a gloved hand coming up to brush his fur mantle back away from his jugular. Elodie brought her eyes back to his, and was surprised to find his expression an apologetic one.

“I normally go for a walk this way before bed, when I know I won’t be disturbing anyone.”

It was like he was embarrassed, as if by presenting it honestly he could be done with this subject all the more quickly.

“What would you do that would be disturbing?” Elodie asked. “Do you plan on bursting into song?”

Instead of teasing back, Cullen frowned, rolling his neck backwards as if he hoped it would pop and alleviate some pressure behind his shoulders. She stilled. It was a familiar gesture, one she found herself doing more and more often lately. She wondered if Cullen had a tight knot of nerves and muscle right between his shoulderblades like she did.

“All joking aside, I can see why you like it out here,” Elodie murmured, turning back to the sky and mountains before them. “It’s quiet. Or, it would be if I wasn’t here, I suppose.”

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he didn’t want to stay with her, not when she pushed like this. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs to the brim and then exhaling slowly, as if she were trying to absorb the starlight into her chest and ignore the inevitable sting of him walking away.

“Joking aside, Herald,” he murmured, “your voice could only improve the atmosphere, not take away from it.”

Elodie glanced up after a beat, unsure if she had taken a comment out of context or if Cullen was actually trying to compliment her. To make matters worse, he didn’t seem to know either. He took a deep breath, looking up at the breach as he did so, and let it out slowly.

“Maybe some other time, we could-”

“Stay,” Elodie blurted.

“Beg pardon?”

She paused, rethinking her reaction, but then grit her teeth and simply let her words cascade forth. Better to be honest than to be a coward, even if he said no.

“Would you like to join me, in being alone out here, just for a moment?” she asked, setting her brow as she prepared for him to reject her, pinning him with her gaze as she waited for him to say no. He drew in his lower lip, looking intrigued, and that was all it took to further bolstered her courage. “I won’t disturb you, you won’t disturb me,” she said with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “We’ll be by ourselves, just at the same time.”

“Is that a thing that people do?” Cullen asked, slightly breathless in the cold. Elodie gave a small laugh, enchanted at his tone, but he must have thought it mocking. He cleared his throat, his jaw tightening as if he regretted saying anything to begin with.

Instinctively, Elodie reached out before he could move to leave and caught a handful of his cloak, keeping him in place. He froze, the hold she had on him drawing him closer to her.

Elodie had only meant to keep him from leaving, but she found herself tipping her head back to better look at him. He was taller than her, and while normally the inches didn’t matter much across a table, they were certainly felt here. His expression was one of incredulity, and she dropped the fabric and took a step back before he could get offended. She shouldn’t have grabbed at him, even if it was just a light pull such as that. Childish. She cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he answered, voice low. It sounded like he was still looking at her, still close, but she couldn’t trust herself to look back at him. A faint memory of a fantasy edged at the corner of her mind, and she stared off over the frozen lake to try to rid herself of it.

“It is, sometimes. A thing that people do,” she whispered, at a loss for what to say.

“You really actually want me to stay… don’t you?”

Elodie turned back and narrowed her eyes at him. Even in the dark, she could tell that he looked shocked but… pleased? Like he had been arguing against staying only out of a sense of formality, or possibly because he felt like… maybe she was the one indulging him? Backlit by moonbeams and the slight green aurora of the breach, Cullen seemed to finally relax. Elodie smiled wanly, and honesty bubbled up once more.

“I really actually do.”

“Might I ask why?” Cullen asked. Elodie paused, swallowing hard.

Why indeed? She hadn’t thought about it. The longer she went without answering, the more she realized that she didn’t have a reason; she just liked being near him. A slow blush crept up to crest her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, backlighting her vallaslin. She’d been drawn to Cullen since she first met him, but hadn’t thought much of it since she had to work with the man. Those kinds of thoughts… they weren’t appropriate. She glanced down and shrugged at the snow.

“I wasn’t refusing, Herald,” he murmured, filling her silence. The title felt different when he said it like that. Somehow intimate. Cullen dipped his head a bit lower, as if trying to convince her to meet his gaze again. “Merely curious.”

“Didn’t you ever have peaceful moments as a group when you were a Templar?” she asked, not looking up. She didn’t know why she couldn’t turn her eyes to his, why she was blushing, or why she had asked him to stay.

But he was still here.

In fact, she watched his boots gently press through the slight dusting of snow as he stepped closer to her. Elodie felt her pulse quicken, and strangely enough the urge to reach out and place her hand on his forearm welled up inside her.

“We were hardly ever truly alone,” he replied. She glanced up at his words and he seemed to be trying to gentle his words as he spoke. It was not the same interview-like responses he had given her before, when she asked what made him want to become a Templar. He seemed to be trying to coax her to speak back, his tone warm and sweet.

“Never?” she wondered aloud.

“I didn’t even have a bedroom to myself." He chuckled, then added dryly, “I still don’t really.”

Elodie tucked a curl behind her ear, tilting her head.

“Does that bother you? Or rather, did it?”

“No, not really. Usually our peace was found in prayer. And that tended to be a solitary act, even if you were with others.”

“Well… luckily, stargazing can be the same.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners, an indulgent smile, much like he had smiled weeks earlier when she asked him if he had a lecture prepared for her. Elodie felt even more words bubbling forth to cover the stupid grin she knew she wore.

“When you look up, it makes you feel small. You forget yourself, and the world around you. The world seems calmer, quieter, more deliberate. I believe the Maker exists in those small moments.”

“What about the breach in the distance?”

“Ignore the breach for a moment,” Elodie said, because it was exactly what she needed to do. That made Cullen laugh, a tiny noise that Elodie didn’t know if she had heard before now. He had chuckled sarcastically, certainly, but… this sounded like an expression of fondness. Different somehow. Elodie liked it, wanted him to do it again.

“I’ll do my best,” he answered.

Did he ever do anything less?

“If you’re going to stay," Elodie teased, "I _might_ be convinced to share this rock with you and explain some of the constellations I’ve been researching." She sat down and drew one knee up to her chest as she let the other dangle over the edge of the boulder.

She looked up at him and patted the snow beside her, hoping he wasn’t annoyed at being yanked back when he’d tried to leave. Cullen stepped over to her, the golds and reds of his armor almost colorless in the pale blue light of the moon.

“I have to convince you, then?” he asked patiently, as one might a child. Elodie smiled wider and nodded. He bit his lower lip before asking, “How might I do that?”

“Tell me a little about yourself.”

“You’ve already asked me about my time in Kirkwall, my motivation to become a Templar, and… other such things,” Cullen muttered, clearing his throat. “There can’t be much more you want to know.”

Elodie squinted at him in the moonlight.

“You’re still sore about the celibacy question, aren’t you?”

“Well, if I was, I wouldn’t appreciate being reminded of it now.”

He brought a gloved hand to the nape of his neck, squirming slightly under Elodie’s gaze. He sat down with a groan, surprisingly graceful for someone moving with metal plates on his limbs.

“Maker’s breath. What interest could you possibly have in my personal choices and habits anyway?” he muttered.

“I want to get to know you better,” Elodie said, struggling to keep a serious face as he muttered another nervous curse under his breath. “Forgive me,” she smiled, grateful the night was so cold; this man warmed her too much, made her feel relaxed and sleepy. “If I’m being too intrusive, let me know. I can rein in my curiosity.”

She glanced him over, trying to analyze his body language to see if he was truly uncomfortable. With Cullen, it was hard to tell. She wasn’t sure she knew him well enough yet to be able to read him, but he seemed to relax.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, shrugging. Slowly, a shy smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “I came out here for a distraction, and you’re certainly providing one.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a compliment, ser,” she laughed, hugging both of her legs now. It was colder than she’d anticipated, even with him nearby. She didn’t want to move, though, didn’t want to break whatever spell this was. It felt like when Vivienne cast barriers around her in combat, like she was shielded momentarily from anything that would seek to lash out at her.

“How are you doing lately?” Cullen asked.

The question came as a whisper, and Elodie felt her smile wane. Every one of her companions seemed to ask her that regularly now. Maybe a part of her had been hoping that he wouldn’t do the same.

“Fine,” she mumbled, hugging both her legs closer so that she could rest her chin on her knees and glance back at the sky. The moon was big and bright, barely any clouds overhead. And in this moment, it wasn’t exactly a lie; she felt fine, for now.

“I’m glad,” he answered, then breathed in deeply. On his exhale, he closed his eyes. “This is nice.”

“What do you mean by _this_ , exactly, Commander?” she murmured, tentatively hopeful.

“It’s being alone at the same time as you. Isn’t that what you said?” he joked, turning to her with a slight smirk.

Elodie looked down at the scar bisecting the edge of his lip, just a quick glance. He went to speak, hesitated, and she had to turn her focus back to the moon to keep from staring at his mouth. A dream-memory, the feeling of that scar brushing across her temple, made her have to adjust her scarf, loosening it away from her pulse.

“I’m happy I can have a quiet moment with you,” Elodie confessed before she could stop herself.

Cullen glanced over, eyes wide in surprise.

“Wait, not like that. I meant,” Elodie clutched her fingers against her knees harder, trying to rephrase. “Out in the field, when we’re traveling, I get quiet moments with everyone else. In Josephine’s office, in Leliana’s tent, there are quiet moments. When I want to speak with you though…”

“I’m surrounded by soldiers.”

“Or paperwork,” Elodie supplied immediately.

Cullen gave a mirthless chuckle.

“Fair enough.”

“If you could come out with me,” Elodie hinted, much like she had to Leliana earlier that morning. “If you could be in the field, I mean. Would you come?”

“In a heartbeat,” Cullen answered. “But you and I both know that I’m better off here, providing support."

"And how do you know that?"

"For one, I’m not as young as I once was. Charging recklessly into the fray does not appeal as it once did.” He paused, glancing up at the sky before returning her gaze. "Moreover, the Templars and our current troops need to be supported by someone who understands."

“I see." She didn't try to conceal her disappointment, or her agreement. Impishly, she added, "But you still would go.”

“If you needed me to, yes,” Cullen clarified.

“That’s good to know,” Elodie said, turning back to the snow covered lake beyond the tree line.

“And if you need me to help with… other matters,” Cullen added, his voice slightly tense, “then I am here to listen and advise you as best I can. Always.”

“What _other_ matters are you alluding to?” she asked, glancing over to shoot him a questioning look. He drew in his lower lip slowly, then sighed.

“The dreams.”

Elodie frowned and felt her eyebrows draw down into a scowl. Cullen glanced away from her, his posture stiff and apprehensive.

“Mmhmm,” Elodie tried to conceal the frustration in her voice. “So who told you? Varric?”

“Cassandra might have mentioned something.”

“What all did she tell you?”

“That you and I suffer from similar sleeping complications,” Cullen said, and he repositioned himself as she watched. He relaxed, resting with his palms out behind him, his chestplate reflecting the starlight in glints of silver and gold upon the snow. It was like preparing to admit this to her had kept him tense, drawn taut, and upon speaking it aloud he had no energy left to stay so uptight.

“You…?”

How could she finish this accurately without giving too much away… Have trouble telling the difference between sleep and awake? See your friends dying when you close your eyes? Feel insurmountable pressure that seems to manifest in pain at your shoulders and lower back at odd hours of the day?

“Have rather vivid, repetitive nightmares, yes.”

“Mmm.”

“I know it might not be my place to offer a listening ear,” Cullen said, his tone conveying more hesitance than his body language, “but I know what it feels like, to doubt yourself after a traumatic experience.”

She stayed silent, a breeze carrying the smell of elfroot and cold dirt to her nostrils. She swallowed, but luckily Cullen did not take her silence as discomfort.

“If I may be so bold,” he continued, “I wanted to tell you that your innate response to the envy demon was very impressive.”

She scoffed.

“If I did such a great job defeating it, then why won’t it leave me?” she asked bitterly.

The phrase seemed to strike something in Cullen particularly hard, because he sat up straight once more. His expression hardened, and Elodie’s heart beat faster in fear at the look he gave her.

“If you're worried that the demon still resides within you-”

“No, Cullen,” she bit out, “I meant the memory. The feeling of being… back there. Of being helpless.”

He relaxed, his eyebrows raising just slightly as he brought his gloved hand to his lips.

“I… I see. I apologize for misunderstanding.” He shook his head. “As far as the memories… I can’t promise you that they’ll go away anytime soon. Or ever, in some cases.”

Cullen was looking out towards the breach, and Elodie could sense that he was no longer just speaking about her experience. She wished she could reach out to him, or ask him to tell her more, but she had already pushed so much.

Still. He was quiet, contemplative, and she wanted to fill the silence. Elodie felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, felt like she’d drunk something vaguely alcoholic. It was like she couldn’t stop herself.

“You’re there, in my nightmares,” she blurted before she knew it. “I think it’s why Cassandra told you about them. Told you to talk to me about them.”

Maybe seeing Cullen as a real person, in a quiet moment, could help the dream version of him fade away from her mind’s eye. Elodie was hoping that was the case, anyway. Maybe that was why she confessed that so easily. Cullen seemed to still be absorbing the situation.

“I’m in your nightmares?” he asked, his voice gruff. Elodie nodded, embarrassed. Cullen gave off an air of unperturbed speculation. In fact, his expression was very much like when Elodie handed him completed reports across the war table. “Alright. In what sense?”

“You’re…” Elodie struggled to find the words without conjuring up the image. To force it from her mind, she turned to the ex-Templar, leaning forward. He smelled different in real life than in her dream; darker, like the slight musk of a flower’s petals crushed under a leather boot. There was also the faint whiff of oil, metal, fur. Something she couldn’t place, something very unique to him.

She felt her breath catch in her throat. What did he ask her again? He sat up, repositioning himself to better face her, and she curled her feet under herself as she turned to him fully.

“I’m what?” he asked, encouraging and warm and so terribly close.

“You’re wonderful,” she whispered, thinking of the way he held her in the dreams and the way those dreams inevitably ended. He blinked, as if taken aback by the compliment, and Elodie frowned at what she had to say next. “In my dreams, you die trying to protect me.”

The confession seemed to hit him like a physical blow, the opposite of Elodie’s intention. Cullen’s jaw clenched,  and his eyes searched a point in the sky right above the point of her left ear. She wanted his gaze back, wanted to know what he thought of this. Was he embarrassed to be a reoccurring element? Would this confession only serve to worry him further? He shook his head as if he could hear her thoughts, or maybe it was to clear his own.

“To tell you the truth, I’m relieved, in a way.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“For a while,” he murmured, “I thought you were afraid of me.”

“I’ve never feared you,” she said, her voice rough.

“Never?” he asked. His eyes were narrowed, as if he didn’t believe her, and Elodie mulled over how she could convince him. She didn’t know what had given him this impression, didn’t know why he felt like she scared easily, but she could probably find a way to reassure him.

“When I first met you,” Elodie murmured, “I saw the way you jumped in front of the rage demon that would have hit your men. I saw the way you rushed forward to make yourself the target. When I was firing arrows from behind you, I don’t know that you noticed me until I closed the rift. You rushed up to Cassandra, and…”

He had stopped, she could still see it clearly. He’d stopped and asked who she was, and she’d told him she was going to help. The look he’d given her…

“You seemed hesitant to leave us,” Elodie continued, “as if you wanted to come with me straight up to the breach itself because your job wasn’t done yet. I think had your soldiers not been wounded and falling back, you would’ve followed me, but you trusted me to get the job done and turned away. And that gave me a lot of strength, to see you protecting everyone around you.”

“I remember that day going differently,” he murmured as his brow knit together.

“I don’t know if it was the pain, or the rift, but I remember it clearly. So trust me when I say that you’ve never struck me as frightening… you’re protective. So much so that I wish you could come fight by my side whenever I leave Haven.” She blinked hard, wondering when she had gotten so emotional. “Maybe then I would feel less alone,” she finished, clenching her jaw in an effort to stop from divulging even more weakness in front of the Commander.

His eyes clouded and he gave a tiny shake of his head.

“You know that if you need me, all you have to do is ask, Elodie. But I saw you that day, too. On that day, I could not protect my men by myself, and that-”

“Stop.”

“B-beg pardon?”

“What did you call me?” Elodie whispered. Cullen paused, shutting his mouth so hard that there was an audible click. “My name. You called me by my name.”

“I…” he stumbled, his eyes coming back to hers, his features deliberately blank as if he’d been reprimanded. “Forgive me, Herald. I did not mean any-”

Elodie had her arms around his neck before he could utter another word, her face buried in the black and red fur at his collar. Near his pulse she could smell clove and something alluring, something she couldn’t place. She wondered absently what it was. He made a small noise as she exhaled, a barely-concealed groan. She knew that he was about to push her away.

The metal of his breastplate was warmer than she’d expected, most likely the work of a rune or enchantment. He couldn’t possibly run that hot naturally, could he? Elodie nuzzled closer, almost pushing him completely off the rock so tightly did she cling.

She sighed deeply, wishing sorely that she could stay and fall asleep in his arms. He’d never let her, but if she could trade that nightmare for this dream, she’d never want to wake up. Her arms were around his neck, and she braced herself for his firm but polite disentanglement.

But he didn’t push her away.

Elodie struggled to conceal a gasp as she felt him adjust to account for her weight and bring his arms up to hold her back. She felt his gloved hands move up tentatively to draw her nearer, like he didn’t know whether to actually hug her or not, and she automatically made an embarrassing noise of her own against his neck. Startled, he seemed to react instinctively to her. His grip tightened, his fingers momentarily digging a fraction harder into the flesh at her shoulders, and he inhaled as deeply as she had. For a few blissful moments, they held one another close.

It was the first time Elodie had been hugged since she had fallen from the breach. She could have cried, it felt so good. His body shielded hers while simultaneously seeking comfort for himself. Elodie gave it willingly, tightening her arms so that he could feel how much she needed this, how much she wanted to give back to him. Elodie felt a heartbeat pulsing where the skin of her cheek met with the curve of his neck, but she couldn’t have said whether it was her own or Cullen’s.

They broke apart at the same time, as if both sensed how dangerous a gamble it was to indulge in such an act. Secluded though their area may be, one never knew who could be watching and misconstruing. Elodie cleared her throat, turning back to the stars and dragging her heavy curls away from her face, too warm, way too warm. She glanced over and noted with a pulse of satisfaction that Cullen was holding a gloved hand over his mouth, his brow furrowed. Even in the dark, his blush was evident.

“Thank you, Cullen. I needed that,” she said, in what she hoped was her most neutral voice.

“An embrace?” he asked, his voice husky, and she gave a nervous giggle.

“I meant you calling me by my first name.” She shrugged, and added, “But the hug was nice too.”

“As much as I agree, I fear it was inappropriate.”

“The name, or the _embrace_?” Elodie teased, resisting the urge to nudge his shoulder with her own.

“Oh for the love of- _your name_. Let’s focus on that in lieu of other things for the moment.”

“Alright,” Elodie agreed, trying to keep the wounded tone from her voice. She didn’t want to think that he felt otherwise, but he was right; it wasn’t something she should pursue.

He cleared his throat, obviously trying to regain some control of the conversation. Elodie heard a nug scamper off in the distance, its soft trill echoing slightly across the snowdrifts. She bit her lip, trying not to grow more anxious with each second he stayed silent.

“Regardless of how enjoyable it may be for either of us,” Cullen said carefully, with more than a trace of regret in his voice. “I can’t be the one to fulfill those needs. Not appropriately, anyway.”

“We’re still talking about my name, right?” she asked. Cullen shot her a look that begged for patience, so she bit back her smile. “Right. Continue.”

Elodie pulled one of her gloves tighter over her palm, digging the leather in between her fingers so that she didn’t have to look at the man’s lips while he spoke.

He sighed deeply.

“I can’t address you by your first name for a few reasons. It’s rude of me, for one, since we’ve only known each other a short while. But even if we were to become close…” She snapped her gaze up at this, but found that he wasn’t looking at her, as if he _couldn’t_ look at her. He must have still felt her gaze, because he stopped and cleared his throat. “It could lead to others speaking to you too casually, if they overheard me foregoing your title.”

“I have never been one to care what people think, you know.”

“Seeing as you’re a representative of the Inquisition, you might need to start,” he advised, finally making eye contact with her again. Elodie fought the instinct to look away, dared herself to drink in his gaze for as long as she could stand it. “I’m all for you being a Herald of the people, so long as the people know to show you the proper modicum of respect. I should be leading them by example.”

“Ah,” Elodie grunted, finally looking to where she heard a group of nugs moving in the distance. “I guess I should’ve thought of that.”

“Had you not before?”

“Not really. But it does explain some things.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“Well, why you all call me only by my title, for one. And why Cassandra was so uncomfortable when I asked her to use my first name instead, for another.”

“What…” Cullen paused, thinking. “Honestly, did you think we were trying to distance ourselves from you by not using your first name when we spoke in public?”

“Well, yes.”

Cullen made a tiny noise of derision, and Elodie frowned, her brow furrowing.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s not my fault. You all call one another by your first names, but I was always ‘Herald’ or ‘your Worship’ or something. So I thought-”

“It’s out of respect for you, not out of dislike.” Cullen’s voice was firm, gruff. The idea that his posturings had been misconstrued didn’t seem to sit well with him, but after a moment his expression shifted from disdainful to concerned. “If I’ve given you cause to think that I dislike you personally, please tell me so that I might reassure you.”

“No, none,” she replied, maybe a bit too quickly, her heartbeat racing. “You’re rather warm, most days. On the days when you aren’t overly busy.” _Those are the days I actually get a chance to speak with you for more than a minute_ , she thought. _And they are all too rare._

“I just…” Cullen stopped, looked back up to the stars. He sighed. “I think we can do a lot of good here, and I don’t want to give you anything less than my full support. I keep busy out of respect for the Inquisition, too.”

“I see,” Elodie said quietly. She had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t what he’d originally intended to say, but she didn’t want to press the issue.

That seemed to put an end to the conversation, at least for a little while. Elodie repositioned herself in the snow, moving inadvertently closer to the Commander. When their shoulders touched, he didn’t pull away.

“You know, even though I hate it, I think it’s beautiful,” Elodie whispered to herself at one point as they looked to the breach.

“I find that most dangerous things are, in their own ways,” the Commander answered.

“Can I ask you something?”

“I have a feeling that you will no matter what I say,” he chuckled. She smiled to herself and flicked a bit of snow off her thigh absentmindedly.

“You said, earlier, that you come out here because you won’t disturb anyone. What did you mean by that?” Elodie asked. “What did you intend to do?”

“I promise you, it wasn’t anything untoward,” Cullen said. He brought a hand to the pommel of his sword even as he sat with her. It was something Elodie noticed that he did often, almost like it was a nervous habit, one that lent him strength as he sought the right words. “Usually when I need a sense of direction or an affirmation,” he said softly, “faith is enough to get me through. But at times, even silent prayers leave me feeling too crowded. So I come out here, take a minute to recenter myself, and then return with a clear head.”

“Small moments remind you of the Maker too, huh?” she said, more to herself than anything.

He glanced over at her, eyes narrow, but the corner of his lip curved up in a nervous smile.

“Y-yes.” Cullen paused. “Conversing about this isn’t something I’m used to.”

“Takes practice, but you’re doing very well,” Elodie said, smiling a bit. She found that she liked hearing him speak, and she hoped he knew that her offer for listening to any number of his lectures hadn’t been just mere flirtation. She turned back to the sky. “Having something beautiful to stare at can help with meditation, I’ve found.”

“Indeed,” he replied, his voice quiet.

Her pulse leapt once more, so easily baited by the slightest change in his tone. Adjusting her shoulders a bit, Elodie cleared her throat as quietly as she could. She needed to save them both, before one of them lost control.

“I might call it a night, if that’s alright with you?”

The most difficult sentence she had uttered all night. Cullen swallowed hard, and she couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed.

“By all means,” he stood barely a few seconds before her, then offered her his hand to assist her in standing up. She smiled and took it, allowing him to pull her easily onto her feet and forward just a few inches closer. Before he could say anything else, her grin broadened at their proximity. Like magnets, she could feel him drawn to her. As if he were remembering himself, Cullen took a step back and stood up straighter.

“Shall I walk you to your cabin?” he offered, his voice husky.

“No," Elodie said, hoping he couldn't tell how difficult it was to refuse him. "That won’t be necessary. It’s only a few steps that way.”

He made a move to protest, but she hopped down from the boulder before he could say more. She looked back at the Commander over her shoulder.

“I think I’ll sleep well, thanks to this,” she admitted.

He smiled, and Elodie melted.

“Remember, you’re strong enough to get through the dreams on your own. Even if I would protect you, given the chance,” he said, his voice low, as if he hardly believed he’d dare to utter such a thing out loud. Elodie bit her lip, looking down at her feet so that she didn’t slip as she shifted her weight from hip to hip.

“Thank you, Cullen,” she said, moving back towards the path that had led her into the woods.

“Sleep well, Elodie,” he answered, just loud enough for her to be sure it wasn’t an accident.

* * *

 


	2. Friendship Trinkets

It was becoming difficult to stay at Haven for too long a period of time. Vivienne had pulled Elodie aside to ask her about her motivations for the Circle of Magi, and Elodie had only been able to tell her that she did agree mages needed to be safe while they explored their talents. She didn't really know enough about anything else Vivienne spoke of to really conduct a proper conversation. When Vivienne had asked about securing further lyrium sources, however, she’d felt her lip curl.

“I won’t be feeding their addiction,” Elodie said. “We’ll get them what we can.”

“My dear, you brought them in and will be denying them something that is essential for them to function on their own. You will not be saving them, you will be forcing them into painful withdrawal.”

“I… hadn’t considered that.”

She wished she had deferred to Cullen on the issue. He would have no doubt known how to appeal to both the Templars and the Orlesian mage without conflict, whereas Elodie herself was lost. At the moment, she could almost feel the disapproval radiating from Vivienne even as she called Elodie ‘dear’. She had a feeling that she would need to do even more research than she already had, looking for supply lines. But Elodie also felt drawn to the physical implications of ingesting lyrium. It seemed she knew very little on the subject, and she did not want any of her allies suffering.

Elodie escaped Haven when she next had a free moment, and with her party in tow went off to the Hinterlands. She cited a few rifts as the reason why she was returning to the area in lieu of taking on some of the newer areas that Scout Harding had suggested she explore.

Elodie didn’t tell anyone that she intended to check on Dennet’s family while she was in the Hinterlands, didn’t reveal any of the other such tasks that might be deemed frivolous by her party members. Worry laced each decision Elodie made, but she continued to make them anyway. She needed to finish a task, any task, to try to make herself whole once more.

After she raced Senna, then led a stray druffalo home, and then collected ram meat for refugees, Elodie was positive that her entire party knew that she was attempting to do every small task she came into contact with. Despite her fear that they would find her ridiculous for wanting to help everyone, they all seemed to approve.

It got easier with time, grabbing back her self-confidence. Elodie could feel it returning with each grateful handshake, with every smile she received from people who were just like her: scared, unsure, and doing their best. Elodie wondered whether she was still doing the right thing by dawdling as she was, especially at night before she slept. But then she remembered what her advisors had said: the Inquisition needed to extend its influence.

Every small act she completed did just that. It made sense that everyone was happy to go along with each and every sidetrack, treasure map, and request, no matter how trivial it seemed. With that knowledge in mind, that they didn’t mind whatever quests she indulged in, she truly did _indulge_.

What was meant to be a quick mission to close the rifts leftover in the Hinterlands ended up lasting three weeks. Elodie gathered agents at every turn, it seemed, and she sent person after person to Haven to await her arrival. When one small problem was solved, another two cropped up, but Elodie relished that. From healers to mages to false Chantry sisters, everyone was welcome and everyone had the potential to be useful and everyone was welcome.

Elodie and her party scouted almost the entire area, the cartographers quizzing her at night for details on certain rock formations. They traveled at a leisurely pace most days, fulfilling requisition requests and closing any rifts they came by. Bandits, rogue Templars, apostates, all of them were stopped swiftly by the blades and bows of the Inquisition.

Elodie could feel herself growing stronger by the minute, could feel herself centering. Skills began to hone themselves, little by little, and then exponentially. She began waking up to spar against Cassandra not to refocus herself, but to learn. Sera watched, swinging her legs from astride Elodie’s mount, a wild hart that Sera insisted liked her best.

The mischievous elf would loop silvery filament between its antlers in beautiful, random designs, and to be fair the hart did tolerate her completely. Sera named it, but Elodie ignored the title, preferring not to have to utter it in polite company. She did, however, leave the silvery designs on the hart’s antlers until nightfall. It became like a ritual for her to unweave them before bed and braid them back into tightly woven balls that Sera would use the following morning.

Over the weeks, Elodie’s strides grew longer, more confident, and at night she began to tell more stories to the women as they ate. This trip there were no sweet rolls, but Vivienne had brought a very fragrant, lovely tea for them to share, and she would brew it right as she saw Elodie beginning to unwind the silvery strings from her hart’s head at night.

Vivienne would serve them all in simple glass mugs that she carried in her own saddlebags, most likely protected from being jostled by some minor spell within the fine Orlesian leather. Elodie would cup the glass in both hands, feeling the warmth spreading past the leather she kept over her marked palm, and be soothed. After spending a difficult day climbing up rock faces in order to secure camps, its heat and sweetness seemed to relax everyone in the party, even if Sera was suspicious that it had to have been magic-infused.

Cassandra almost always took first watch, and in the beginning Elodie thought it was so that the Seeker could play older sister to the Herald should she have any nightmares. Throughout the weeks on the road, however, Elodie caught glimpses of her reading by the fire, her ears pricked for noises and her sword at the ready, but her nose in between the pages of what looked to be a cheap serial. She made a note to ask about it later, but never did.

Instead, Elodie decided merely to take comfort that Cassandra was at ease around her. The Seeker even laughed when Elodie suggested that she teach Sera how to braid better, since Cassandra’s hairstyle seemed to stay tight and beautiful even under the heaviest of helmets. The laugh was clear, loud, and even more enjoyable when Cassandra then refused and told Elodie to teach Sera herself.

One morning, Cassandra and Sera were finishing breakfast when Vivienne handed Elodie a second pack.

“What’s this?” Elodie asked, taking the extended leather saddle bag before the enchanter had a chance to answer.

“I noticed that your ruck was already getting full, and I always pack spare bags. You can have that one. I’ve been meaning to get a newer version on my next trip to Val Royeaux.”

“Thank you Vivienne,” Elodie answered, turning the finely stitched pack over in her hands. It had simple buckles made from what looked to be carved antlers, and when Elodie stroked a gloved hand over it she recognized the material. “Oh, Vivienne, this is snofleur skin. I can’t take this. It’s much too expensive.”

“Nonsense, darling, it’s already depreciated in value since I took it out of the packaging. It’s yours.”

“Let me smell it,” Sera insisted, reaching over with hands Elodie suspected might still be coated in bacon grease.

“Why?”

“Rich things always have a smell before you make them smell like you. I’ve never gotten to sniff snofleur before. Hand it over.”

“Wipe your mitts first,” Elodie chuckled, and Cassandra offered up a handkerchief that the elf spurned in favor of her shirtfront. She reached back out with moderately cleaner hands, and Elodie conceded the bag.

Sera took a deep inhale, almost shoving her shoulders into the widemouthed pack as well. When she sighed, it sounded like she approved, based on the knowledge Elodie had of the kinds of grunts Sera tended to use for things that made her happy.

“This is good stuff.”

“What do you keep in your bag, anyway, Herald?” Cassandra asked her, one eyebrow raised in question. “The rest of us barely fill a pack each.”

“Oh you know.” Elodie walked over and unhooked her pack from her mount’s side to bring it over and show the other women. “The usual.”

She opened it and the light caught the trinkets within, almost blinding the party.

“Maker,” Cassandra mumbled.

“Shiny,” Sera agreed.

“Some of these are things I think Minaeve can use, like some bowstrings and armor shards.” As Elodie spoke, she shuffled through the bag, pulling out things into the open before replacing them again. “Some things I bet I could sell at the Crossroads, like these statues? How cute, right? This one’s a little nug.”

“Give that here,” Cassandra said gently. “I know someone who would like to find that on their bed when we return.”

“Sure,” Elodie handed over the little statuette. “One of the merchant’s daughters?”

“I was sworn to secrecy,” the Seeker answered slyly. Elodie narrowed her eyes, but Sera’s shout distracted her.

“That’s beautiful!”

“What, this?” Elodie pulled out what used to be a broken locket. She’d fixed it one night when she couldn’t sleep, using some of the silver filigree that Sera had procured, and had turned the half-wrent charm into a kind of bracelet.

“I love it,” Sera stated.

“I made it, but it’s not very good,” Elodie said, holding it up. “It’s a bit too small, I think. At least for most peoples’ wrists.”

“Try it on mine,” Sera insisted, holding out her right hand. Elodie obliged, turning Sera’s wrist over and buckling the bracelet on the second clasp. That clasp she’d taken from a necklace with a broken chain, and she was actually kind of proud of how well it had come together in the little jewelry piece Sera now held up in the growing sunlight.

“You made that?” Vivienne asked, and Elodie had a hard time telling if it was approval or disdain that quieted the mage’s voice. Regardless, Elodie nodded and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Sweetheart, it’s beautiful,” Vivienne whispered. “Wherever did you find the time?”

“We have some quiet moments every now and again,” Elodie replied, pleased beyond what she wanted to admit. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Is that whole bag filled with other baubles such as these?” Vivienne asked.

“Oh no, there’s more.”

Elodie pulled out some of the larger gemstones she’d squirreled away, some books she’d grabbed, and some broken or gaudy jewelry pieces that she had yet to convert to her liking. Along with that, she had begun collecting completely worthless objects such as Chantry candle stubs.

“Why pick this up?” Cassandra asked, holding the wax in between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s half-melted already.”

“I don’t know,” Elodie shrugged. “Sometimes I go through my bag at night and discard some of those things, the ones I could never use for anything, but that still feels better than leaving them behind. I like that I can carry them elsewhere, and then maybe someone who can use it can find it.”

“Must be an elfy-elf thing,” Sera said knowingly to Cassandra, who, to her credit, simply rolled her eyes.

“It is an Elodie thing,” Vivienne said firmly, and Elodie froze in place when the mage reached out and placed her palm on top of Elodie’s curls for the briefest second. “I look forward to seeing what little treasure you come up with next,” she said kindly, her eyes crinkling at the corners ever so slightly as she smiled.

“I hope we continue to have quiet moments so that she can,” Cassandra said. She stood and moved to her horse, but then looked over her shoulder at the other women. “Because I call the next bauble, whatever she ends up making.”

* * *

 

By the time they were headed back to Haven, the entire party was battered, bruised, and worn- but they were outfitted with tiny trinkets.

Cassandra had insisted on a ring that Elodie had woven from wire and cloth surrounding three shards of a cracked ruby. When Elodie asked if she would like a necklace to match, Cassandra had blushed and mumbled something about getting too overburdened, and then left Elodie with a small thank you. Elodie figured from her reaction that she was truly pleased with the first gift, and dropped the issue.

Vivienne had graciously accepted Elodie’s offering of a thinly chained opal that she had fastened into a scraped up cameo with the mage’s help. She’d asked Vivienne to melt a bit of metal and fastening fluid together in order to get the opal to adhere strictly to the cameo’s carved-out surface. The enchanter had done so gladly. She’d stated that it was to show off her delicate magical capabilities as much as Elodie’s handiwork, but the way Vivienne’s delicately varnished fingernails adjusted it carefully as they rode seemed to hint that it meant more than that.

Sera, the least discrening of the lot, was determined to ride back into Haven with her arms covered in what she called “friendship bracelets”. It had become a new riding ritual between the two women. They would talk and braid new patterns with whatever scraps of cloth they could pick up, sometimes threading beads or feathers through them as well. Elodie kept all of the ones Sera gave her on her hart’s antlers, a testament to their previous back and forth. Even the ones with accidental blood droplets on the threads.

Elodie’s dreams had been mercifully silent for most of the trip, seeing as she rode the expedition into the ground throughout the day, foregoing her hart at times to walk along the roads on foot beside him. She feared for the animal’s safety were they to run into people fighting amongst themselves, of which there were plenty, so sometimes she would even leave the beast with the scouts and move ahead with just her party. On their way home to their base of operations, the act of straddling the saddle was painful in a kind of welcoming way.

“Darling,” the enchanter called as they approached the gates. Elodie turned as Vivienne rode up on her Orlesian courser, pulling it to a slow trot beside Elodie’s hart. “I have a question, if I may.”

“By all means.”

“Will you be staying at Haven for a while after this?”

“I…” Elodie knit her brow together, thinking. “I had considered going back out into the field relatively quickly. The Storm Coast has a darkspawn problem, and I wanted to go check out the fabled Black Emporium.” Vivienne gave a cursory smile at Elodie’s mockingly haunted tone. “Then there’s also some-”

“Might I ask a favor of you?”

“A-anything,” Elodie replied almost immediately stopping her thoughts in their tracks.

“If it’s alright, I’d appreciate you taking Solas in my stead when you set back out. I have a few things that I would like to research from the texts we’ve uncovered on this last missive, and it might take a few days of me being in Haven to do so.”

“Oh.” Elodie frowned. “Of course.” She paused, looking over at Vivienne, tilting her head slightly. “Normally you wouldn’t ask my permission. Is everything alright?”

“It is, my dear.”

“I hope it goes well, then,” Elodie said, nodding for emphasis. The enchanter raised a hand, then thought better of it and sighed, putting on her court-winning smile for a brief moment.

“You deserve a break as well, your Worship,” Vivienne said, not unkindly. “We all want you at your best, both for appearances and your general wellbeing.”

“Oh.”

“Look at me going on and on,” Vivienne sighed. “I won’t fuss over you any longer, darling. You’ve got a war council very anxiously awaiting your reports, I’m sure. And I have a few dignitaries to casually show off my new amulet to,” she said, and with a flourish she gestured at her neck where Elodie’s altered cameo lay stark white against her beautiful dark skin. Elodie beamed from the praise, whether it was playful or not.

With that, Vivienne dismounted and led her horse to the stable. The party dropped their mounts off as well and then moved through Haven on heavy feet. They broke off one by one, a weight lifting off of each of their shoulders as they saw relaxation within close grasp. Sera went to the tavern for some hot food, arms extended out before her to catch the fading daylight. Cassandra mentioned something about a nap after the war council met to review reports. Vivienne herself retired to her chambers to change from the only somewhat blood-stained robes, waving to the Herald over her shoulder.

Once alone, Elodie glanced down at herself. She hesitated, then moved to the war room without changing. If this was really who she was from now on, she’d accept it with some of the blood splatter as a reminder of her growing strength, as would her council.

* * *

 

Her advisors had seemed almost proud that she was heading out again so soon after arriving. Josephine had arranged a few favors in order to escort some important caravans. Leliana had been busy with a ‘situation’ up north, but had taken time out of her intricate networking to put a few good agents toward some elven ruins Elodie wanted explored. Cullen was in charge of organizing a display of force in the east, small, meant to both impress and intimidate some of the royals on that side.

All three of her advisors reacted quickly when she spoke. Her voice had changed from the hesitation-filled lilt of a fresh recruit into the rougher, more direct tone of someone who was beginning to think of herself as the Herald after all. The advisors could tell. Leliana smirked knowingly at her across the table when she spoke of reports from new agents, and Josephine had praised her diplomacy with the region’s local dignitaries. Cullen had even given an impressed grunt, eyebrows raised, when she told him she had cleared a keep of local bandits and wanted his men to repair the roads beside it.

Elodie left the room feeling braced, as if she’d taken a cold swim on a hot day. That thought made her ache, and she wished bleakly for the snow outside Haven to somehow magically transform into the greens and yellows of summertime.

It did not.

When Elodie asked Varric and Solas to accompany her to the Storm Coast, they were all too happy to comply. She stayed for a while outside of Adan's workplace as she organized potions for the trip, asking Solas questions, watching him watch her. It was compelling, recognizing that he approved of her, sensing that he liked her. He watched her in an entirely different way than Cullen did, she noted. Could it have something to do with both her and Solas being elves?

Solas observed her movements as one would watch incense smoke: appreciative, interested, but expecting no permanence. Before she knew it, she found herself responding to his questions with hints of her own approval, testing to see if it changed his regard. She only realized she’d been flirting after his tone grew low, and she had to struggle to suppress the blush that crept up her neck at the thought.

Her flustering seemed to amuse him, but she felt little else in response. She was still as smoke to him, and she marveled at the thought.

After questioning Solas more on the Fade, she left him to his thoughts. She contemplated walking to where Blackwall stood by the forge in order to ask the man how he was adjusting to Haven, but Elodie found herself moving back to where she knew Cassandra usually sparred.

“Inquisitor,” the Seeker greeted her, stepping back and setting her sword down. “Are we heading out again?”

“In the morning, before midday,” Elodie smiled. She shifted her weight a bit. “You’re not too tired? You don’t need to stop for a few days?”

“If you’re going, I will accompany you,” Cassandra said. “Unless you feel that someone else is better suited for the job, in which case I do not mind staying back and helping Cullen with the recruits.” She glanced over, almost like she was checking to see if he could hear over the din of shields and swords behind them. Conspiratorially, she leaned in and said, “A handful of them don’t need to have weapons in their hands just yet, but it can’t be helped.”

“I see,” Elodie replied, trying not to smile at the intense way Cassandra was watching the recruits. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer it if you came with me.”

“Good. Let me know when we are to set out, then,” Cassandra replied. She hefted her sword up, then paused, looking over at Elodie. “Did you need something else?”

“No. I’ll let you get back to work,” Elodie replied with a smile. She moved away as Cassandra began to block imaginary attacks.

Luckily, Elodie turned from watching the Seeker just in time to step to the side as a recruit’s swing went wide, his sword arcing through the air towards her forehead.

Elodie ducked underneath of it, rolling to keep from falling, and used the momentum to bounce back almost immediately to her feet. Her stance low and ready to parry a blow should it come, she found herself instead face to chest with an angry golden lion.

“Recruit Tamel,” Cullen shouted, making Elodie flinch. “This is the second time in the last hour that you’ve almost decapitated someone. Go switch out your sword for a slighter heft the way you were ordered to!”

Before the young soldier could argue (and Maker knew his mouth was open like he was about to), Cullen’s second in command, Rylen, moved forward and began to speak to the recruit. They walked away towards the gate, his sparring partner trailing along for lack of a better thing to do. Cullen shook his head, turning fully to Elodie.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Elodie said, shrugging the tension from her shoulders and standing a bit straighter. His voice had startled her more than the clumsy strike, and she had reflexively reached for her bow when she'd rolled up to her feet. Cullen watched her closely, almost as if he could read the instinct to fight back that she was suppressing in her eyes. She grit her teeth, staring back at him, challenging him to worry about her. He nodded tersely.

“Good. Please accept my apologies. Some of the recruits are very young, very headstrong, and very unaccustomed to fighting with a proper sword.”

“They’ll learn,” Elodie said, “especially with you and the captains working so hard. You’ll give them the instincts they need to survive.”

“You know as well as I do that instinct can’t truly be taught,” Cullen said under his breath, sounding annoyed. “But thank you.”

“Did you struggle with being too headstrong when you first joined the Templars?” she inquired, mainly to change the subject but also because the idea of Cullen as a rebellious child was a sudden and endearing thought. “Did you try to fight with a bigger sword than necessary?”

“Not hardly,” Cullen laughed, but the sound was a touch bitter. He motioned for Elodie to follow him out of the sparring area, and when a scout followed him with a report he took it and waved the recruit almost immediately away. He looked down at the papers attached to the clipboard, flipping absently through as he walked with her, and Elodie took a moment to truly look at him.

He looked tired, of course, but she must also look a wreck herself. Still, underneath the fatigue was a warmth to him. Like instincts, it couldn’t be taught or faked. You either had it, or you didn’t, and Cullen seemed to embody it completely even when he wasn’t trying. His face set in a determined expression, he was a ray of focused light in Haven's snowy hills.

“You were a model student, then?” Elodie asked, trying to banish the thoughts of him to the more work appropriate. “I could see that.”

“I tried to be,” Cullen said. He looked up and tilted his head at her, as if he had just realized she was physically here. They’d spent an hour at the war table discussing the Black Emporium and Elodie’s morbid fascination with it, and then she’d almost been decapitated by the recruit, but it was like this moment was the first time he’d gotten to truly see her all day.

He smiled, and Elodie blinked back surprise as she attempted to keep her expression neutral. It was more difficult than untangling the shit Sera wove between her hart’s antlers.

Cullen cleared his throat like he remembered they weren’t alone, and said quickly, “You’ve been busy lately.”

“A little bit, yeah. Things just started falling into place, and I felt like I couldn’t leave the field. It’s good for the Inquisition. And it’s helped with the dreams,” she confessed, her voice just low enough that it wouldn’t carry over the clatter of metal against metal behind them. He seemed shocked she had admitted it in the daylight, and it was her turn to clear her throat. “Anyway, you seem to have your hands full as well,” Elodie said, glancing to where the new recruit could be heard getting an earful from Rylen just beyond the gate. Cullen glanced over his shoulder and sighed, fatigue seeming to suffuse his entire expression for a split second. Then he was once again focused, posture straight, hand on his sword.

“I’m happy to serve how I can, especially since our troops are extremely loyal at their core. Even if I wonder who taught them which end to hold a sword by.” He glanced away quickly, then back to her. “You’ll be leaving again soon, right?”

“Yes.”

He knew she would be, he was in the war room when she said she would. Why ask?

“Will you be staying the night?”

His expression was one of neutrality, as if they were just making small talk, but then he raised his right hand and drew it along the back of his neck. He glanced away at Elodie’s silence, his gaze darkening. As Elodie watched, Cullen took his lower lip between his teeth.

Was Cullen... nervous?

Ah. Something clicked in Elodie's mind, something magnetic and intrigued.

“Yes, I'll be here tonight. Cassandra, Varric, Solas, and I will head out tomorrow morning to meet Scout Harding at the Emporium.”

Cullen made a face, a troubled grimace, but then seemed to catch himself.

“Maker watch over you,” he said firmly.

“Are you busy tonight?” Elodie replied, even though he had essentially dismissed her with the standard goodbye. He faltered, his jaw clenching.

“I uh… no. Nothing set in stone, at least.”

“Good. Could I trouble you to meet with me after dinner?” she asked, trying to keep her heart from racing at the statement.

She was certain nobody else could hear her, but she lowered her voice for his sake. She remembered his rebuke, about how she should start thinking of what people think of her, and it resonated within her now and kept her steady. The Commander’s immediate awkward jaw drop was almost enough to break her facade, however.

“Are you alright?” Cullen asked, and she felt herself glow at his concern. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine. I just… I don’t know how long I’ll be gone for this time, either. I thought we might have another starlight talk before I left.”

"You... want to look at the stars again?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "I think I'll miss th-the talks when I leave, so if you're free..." Elodie trailed off, feeling foolish, and gave a non-commital shrug. "I just thought I would ask."

“Oh.”

Cullen relaxed, his hand returning to rest on the pommel of his sword. He seemed to be puzzling over what this meant, whether or not he should accept, and a part of Elodie felt guilty that she had even put him in that position. She opened her mouth, inhaling to tell him to nevermind it, but he spoke before she could.

“You know, they’re not so much talks as interviews where you’re concerned,” Cullen teased. She waited, watched as his expression melted from overwhelmed to something that looked hesitant and eager. As if to himself, he added, "But I would miss them as well."

Elodie brought up a gloved hand to hide how bright her smile must be.

Cullen nodded, at peace with her invitation.

“Stars it is, then.”

She left before she could make more of a fool of herself, or ask him even more personal questions. Both could wait until tonight.


	3. Interest For Interest's Sake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long part, but for good reason! Elodie and Cullen spend some time together before she has to leave Haven once more.

After changing and dozing comfortably in her bed for an hour, Elodie found herself in the tavern with Sera for an early supper. They were originally at the table together solely for the hearty shepherd's pie, but Elodie ended up asking her about Red Jenny and then shooting the shit good-naturedly even after their plates were licked clean. Elodie had already dropped her bow off with Harritt, along with a few schematics, so there was nothing pressing her to leave right away… or so she told herself, in order to justify what she was in the process of getting roped into.

“You wanna do somethin’ fun?” Sera asked, leaning over their table with a wicked grin. Her bracelets caught the candlelight, those of them that had stones woven in them. She looked around, as if she were checking whether or not there was anyone big enough to stop her in the near vicinity. Elodie narrowed her eyes, waiting. “You and I should play a drinking game.”

“What kind of drinking game?” Elodie asked, frowning. She didn’t like drinking very much, particularly when bets were made on it. At the most, she’d had some Antivan wine when she was a teenager. Sera wrinkled her nose a bit.

“Oh come on. Everything is so boring.”

“Going out for a month-long traipse through the Hinterlands was boring?”

“Well no. But that was because I got to do the traipsing, and hang out with Boosifus.”

“That is _not_ my hart’s name,” Elodie said firmly.

“Precious Booboo’s gonna miss me.” Sera slumped back with a grunt into her chair. “You’re not taking me this next time, so I’ve gotta make do with Haven.” The way she said it made it sound like it was a prison.

“You aren’t grateful for a break?”

“Grateful I don’t have to go along with that elfy mage, I s’pose,” she mumbled. Elodie hated seeing the girl sulk, mainly because of the pranks that followed should her sulking turn to brooding, and so she attempted to steer them back to Something Fun.

“Sera, I don’t normally like drinking,” Elodie confessed. “If we play, you have to go easy on me.”

“How old are you, anyway?” Sera asked, ignoring her comment. It was better than lizards in the bedroll, at least, Elodie told herself.

“How old are _you_?”

“I asked you first!” the elf protested, but she had a mischievous grin on that let Elodie know she was into the banter. Elodie shrugged, leaning back exaggeratedly in her chair.

“Old enough.”

“Sassy Herald. It’s a good look for you,” Sera said, her eyes narrowed in a playful squint. “Okay, I’ll tell you _approximately_ how old I am if you do the same. Deal?”

“Deal.” Elodie leaned forward as if it were a great secret.

“I’m older than twenty,” Sera said proudly.

“Me too,” Elodie smirked. “I'm closer to thirty.”

“So that's old enough to have played a drinking game or two,” Sera said, shaking her head at the absurdity of it. Elodie felt herself beaming. “What say you we order some drinks and just have a go, yeah? Easy game, I’ll make sure you don’t lose too badly. Deal?”

“Depends.” She eyed Sera, sizing her up. “If you were a drink, what drink would you be?”

“Easy.” Sera sniffed. “I’d be Dragon Piss.”

“You mean the alcohol, or the actual-”

Sera interrupted her with a cackle.

“Look at your face! Honestly, is that your idea of a game, labeling ourselves as foodstuffs? If so, I’m glad you’re not in charge of this round, ‘cuz that’s shite.” She devolved into another bout of laughter as she stood up from her chair. “You are so lucky you have me.”

“I’m going to regret this,” Elodie mumbled, “aren’t I?”

“Why would you?” Sera snickered. “Now then! Let’s get proper crosseyed!”

* * *

 

Elodie only meant to stay about an hour, but it turns out that was about how long a round lasted when Sera was in charge. The rogue had luckily agreed to cut Elodie’s whiskey with water after Elodie’s first sip, when she almost coughed it back out onto the table.

“Ugh it burns. I don’t think I could drink a full glass of that,” Elodie said, but Sera was already rolling her eyes.

“We’ll get the baby her water,” Sera cooed in a false singsong, her grin lopsided and sweet, and Elodie spent the rest of the round losing even when she knew she didn’t have to. It perked the elf right up, and Elodie had to admit that it was charming, in a way, how crude Sera could be. It was very freeing, and the game itself was simple.

Sera would design scenarios, elaborate ones, and the person who had the most creative insult for the scenario was the winner. The judge was, of course, Sera herself. To be fair, it had been weeks since Elodie had laughed so hard, and she felt mighty close to being a person when in the company of this spry little elf. She felt less judged, like the expectations she had under her were nothing to the girl. If anything, Sera seemed to like seeing her eschew them more than she liked to work for Elodie in the first place. When Elodie next looked outside, the moon was high and the night was no longer so young.

Bull had come in with Krem right after the first round, thank the Maker. Sera had been the winner, and Elodie had finished almost all of her drink. Admittedly, Sera had watered it down more than she said she would and had cut the whiskey with fresh honey and hot water. It wasn’t all that bad, especially since it was very warm, and the syrupy sweetness that lingered on Elodie’s tongue was more than pleasant. She was still grateful for the Chargers’ interruption.

Varric had been right. Honey whiskey was delicious. Elodie made a mental note to tell him so, at some point, whenever she saw him next. Which would mean getting up and leaving the tavern, if she could.

She hadn’t stood up yet, and was certain she’d be a bit off balance once she did, but otherwise felt fine. Elodie counted her blessings that Krem and Bull were both much more adept and much more lenient in their playing of the game, because Sera didn’t order her a second drink. She was too preoccupied with the new players. They allowed Sera to judge, naturally, but they fought her tooth and nail on each verdict. The first round was an hour, but the second one was twice that. The young elf was loving it. Sera was soon too distracted and drunk to notice that Elodie was sneaking off to get some air.

“I’ll see you when I get back, okay?” Elodie called from the door. Krem was supporting Sera while she attempted to climb on the table to ‘demonstrate true Qunari height’. Bull glanced over to where Elodie was holding the tavern door to keep herself from swaying, his one eye glimmering with knowing in the candlelight.

“Nice playing with you, Boss. You take care tomorrow.”

Elodie nodded and left, hearing a loud swear in Tevene from Krem as the door swung back.

“Teach me what that means!” Sera squealed, and Elodie shut the door on the raucous laughter of the tavern as the bard started up a new tune that she didn’t recognize.

Elodie rested momentarily against the thick wood, her heart beating loudly in her chest, the tips of her large pointed ears cold. The peaceful feeling came back, slowly at first, then all in a rush that forced her to inhale deeply to the top of her lungs and sigh with contentment.

The stars were out, but there were more clouds than the other night. They were wisp-like, faint; they were tulle against the backdrop of the crushed velvet sky. As Elodie walked to the secluded boulder on the edge of the woods, she kept glancing up at the them.

In the Hinterlands, there had been one instance of the nightmare returning. It had been garish, less cinematic than its previous renderings, more gorey and abstract. She’d woken up gasping in the night, feeling as if she were being choked by someone else’s blood, and she had only found solace in sleeping out under the stars, under clouds as faint as these. Cassandra had found her dozing in the pre-dawn gray and layered her with another blanket, but otherwise left her alone to her coping mechanisms.

Elodie paused on her walk, her boots kicking a stray pebble across the path as she stumbled slightly. Was Cassandra insistent on coming with her because of the nightmares specifically? Even though Elodie had hardly been having them lately? It was a nice thought, one Elodie wasn’t sure she wanted to address. She sniffed lightly, trying to put it out of her mind, and ran her tongue across her teeth. Honey still lingered in her mouth and whiskey still warmed her veins, reminding her that there were more pressing matters to attend to. She didn’t want to think about the nightmares right now.

She never got drunk. This was probably the closest she’d been in her life, and it was still rather lucid in comparison to her companions at the bar. Her cheeks felt slightly tingly, her ears a bit numb but that could be from the cold. Her neck was too hot by contrast, and she walked with both hands behind her head holding up her curls. Her arms and legs were pleasantly loose, and she felt as if each movement were elegant; Elodie made a mental note to ask Cullen if she were imagining it when she saw him.

She found herself murmuring a tune the bard had been singing when Elodie had left, but even when she was aware of it she didn’t stop. She hummed the sweet, rather sad melody to herself up until she came upon the boulder.

“Well,” Cullen said before she could climb up the rock, surprising her. She jolted upright, staggering a bit. He was leaning against a tree, shadowed, with his arms crossed as he looked out over the Frostbacks. He reached out with one hand, his expression unreadable. “Are you alright? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.”

“Who's startled?” she feigned, even bringing a falsely scandalized hand to her throat. He gave a relieved exhale and dropped his hand.

"Oh. Good."

“Did I make you wait long?” she asked. With clumsy fingers, Elodie climbed up onto the rock, moved forward, and took her position at the tree opposite him. She put one hand against the bark of the tree, both steadying herself and keeping herself still so that she didn’t close the gap between them.

“Oh, no, not at all,” he replied without hesitation; there was that familiar lightness in his tone, the one that indicated that he was questioning what he’d just said. There was that slight insecurity that reminded her that he wasn’t just the Commander. She smiled as he stammered, “That is, I was waiting of course. But I like being out here regardless, so I didn’t mind.”

“I lost track of time for a moment,” Elodie said, trying her best to be apologetic. It was a bit difficult, with how warm she felt. “I might have tried honey whiskey tonight.”

“Did you really?” Cullen asked, sounding like he was holding back a chuckle.

“I did,” she replied, nodding a bit heavily. She looked out to the stars, noted that her peripheral was decidedly smaller with whiskey on the edge of it. She didn’t like that. “Can you smell it on me? Please tell me you can't.”

“No, you're fine,” Cullen replied, sounding both surprised and amused. Elodie let out a sigh of relief.

“I don’t normally like alcohol.”

“What’s your verdict, then?” Cullen asked, and she turned, realizing belatedly that he was more comfortable drawing out the conversation with her than he’d been during their last starlight talk. She smiled and fluffed her curls with the hand not holding the tree.

“Warm? Sweet, definitely sweet.” She nodded to herself, then realize she didn't know what else to say. Cullen didn’t seem to mind. He took a step forward, readjusting his stance into a more relaxed pose.

“Sounds like the tavern has a new regular,” he teased, and she felt her lips part automatically.

“No, no, I’m not… I don’t particularly like drinking, normally.”

“You said that already," he murmured.

"Oh."

"I don't really like drinking either,” he confessed. “Every once in a while I might have a glass of wine, but lately those times are few and far between.”

Elodie paused, guilt raw in her gut. Was he hinting that he would have liked to come along? Or that he disapproved of her having drank before their conversation tonight?

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“F-for what?” he blurted.

She said nothing, and he bit his lower lip.

“I promise you, I really haven’t been waiting that long.”

“No, I meant that I’m sorry you weren’t there with us,” Elodie said. He paused, and she glanced up only to take in how confused he looked. She swallowed hard. “I should have invited you out with me instead of…” she broke off, now confused herself. She was becoming upset, but Cullen just looked patient and slightly bemused, as if he were trying to keep up with her train of thought and failing.

Elodie took a long breath and let it out slow, feeling a bit like she would like to lie down, just for a moment. As pleasant as it was to feel warm and languid, not feeling completely in control of your emotions was inconvenient. She wondered if this would transfer tonight, if she would dream once more of visceral death. The thought terrified her into stillness.

“I won’t harp on it,” Cullen said, his voice low and careful, “but you really haven’t slighted me, so… as flattered as I am, you needn’t feel guilty on my behalf.”

Elodie narrowed her eyes at him in the dark.

“You wouldn’t have wanted to be around us, all together?”

“On top of not enjoying the drinks, tonight would not have been viable for me. I had work to finish. Waiting out here alone for a few minutes was a nice change of pace after a day of drills and meetings.” She said nothing, was not sure if she believed him or not. He shifted his weight before adding, “I don’t know that I would have been able to fully relax at the tavern, to tell you the truth.”

He smiled as if this should be reassuring, and in his own way she supposed it was. But it only reminded her of him being alone for longer periods of time, of him being isolated.

Training with the Templars, he’d said that he was always around people, right? Other recruits? And then in the Circle, he must’ve been busy at all times, and he would have had people nearby. He’d been a part of a team since he was thirteen years old. They all must’ve attended Chantry services together, that’s what people did, or so Elodie assumed. At the very least he should have had someone to whisper canticles with by candlelight.

Did he have anyone like that here? Had he had anyone like that lately at all?

“Cullen,” she murmured, his name sweet and sad on her tongue.

“Yes?” he answered. “Are you… is everything alright?”

Elodie looked up and saw that he’d pushed off from the tree to be nearer to her, and she felt a lump in her throat at the sight. He was still more worried for her than for himself, and that was an ache of a thought. She frowned. Had she always ached for him like this? She knew she felt for others in her party, her companions, but had almost actively avoided thinking of how she felt for Cullen.

“Is it…” she cleared her throat, tried again in just as meek a tone. “Is it normal to go from being very happy to very sad for no reason when you’ve been drinking?”

She was aware that her voice was almost too small to be heard. She was speaking into her scarf, her chin lowered, her curls hiding her thought process. Before he could answer, she tilted her head up and forced a sad little laugh.

“I asked you here to talk with you about how happy I’ve been lately, and then I show up like this. I’d wager that this isn’t the stargazing you were hoping for.”

“You do tend to surprise me,” he replied with a rueful grin.

She took in a long hitching breath, bolstered by the thought that he deserved better, that the protector should also be protected, and spoke with tears on the edge of her voice.

“I wish-”

“You’ve been happy, you said,” Cullen said, moving forward and cutting her off just as she opened her mouth. His hand caught her elbow, and she registered his touch with a few staggering heartbeats that seemed to send light and static through her veins, making her ears feel too warm.

His fingers shifted so that he could press his palm against her forearm, and she gasped. The noise seemed to help her regain control over her breathing and quell the tears that had been threatening to emerge. Elodie blinked hard, banishing the prickling sensation at the corner of her eyes, and tried to search Cullen’s face for an explanation.

He held her arm gently as if he were about to pull her forward, about to encourage her to once again wrap her arms around his neck. The sadness fled, erased by his close proximity and the way his thumb was soothing a slow circle into the muscles by her elbow.

“You wanted to tell me about it, right?” he asked her, his voice light and comforting. “Tell me all of the good things that you can.”

“I…” she blinked up at him, decidedly drunker than she’d thought she was. She licked her lower lip, relished the slight, sweet burn on the tip of her tongue. She made a helpless noise. There was really only one good thing she could think of right now, and it was the way Cullen was letting her hold onto his arm for support as she glanced him over.

Elodie only realized that she’d been staring at Cullen’s lip scar when he clenched his jaw, like he was fully aware of her pointed gaze. She forced herself to drag her eyes to his, forced herself to stand a bit straighter. The tree at her back was the perfect support, and she leaned onto it as she drank in his molten gold stare.

“The dreams are better,” she said finally, and he blinked as if he had been under a spell. She supposed they both had been, in a way. His thumb stopped moving at her arm, his fingers relaxing into stillness. Elodie forced herself to continue. “Sometimes there are images, flashes, scary moments. But they’re less like real life. It’s easier to wake up and tell myself it’s over. I don’t see them out of the corner of my eyes anymore.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he answered, releasing her arm and moving to take a step back to where he’d been standing before. She kept a smile to herself as he rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you about it for a while now. I just haven’t found the time.”

“You could have written it to me,” Cullen suggested. “I mean, next time, you can write to me if you like.”

“You know that Leliana reads our reports, and I don’t want to share this with everyone,” Elodie replied.

“Fair enough.” He tilted his head. “The offer still stands, if you need it.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she promised, wishing that it were easier to keep her voice from dipping into so tender a timbre when she spoke to him. Clearing her throat, she continued. “It helped to sleep out under the stars, and to walk for most of the day. There were so many beautiful places, too, so many interesting ruins and lakes and caves, it kept my mind occupied.”

“Sounds like it. Did you stay anywhere you were fond of, in particular?”

“We got a hot bath when we stopped through the Crossroads, and a healer gave us her spare room while she packed to follow us to Haven. That was nice.” Elodie smiled, then glanced down at herself. She felt her heart beat one powerful pump of adrenaline through her as she realized. “Oh Maker… I didn’t even bathe yet. Ugh, and the whiskey… I must smell awful,” she groaned, hanging her head once more. When she lolled it around like this, she could really feel the effect of the little alcohol she’d drank; it was enough. She grit her teeth, attempting to ignore the feeling of vertigo as she clutched at the tree behind her. She opened one eye when Cullen chuckled.

“You smell fine, I’m sure.”

“You say that from all the way over there, you’re not downwind,” Elodie teased. “I daresay you’d change your tune upon closer inspection.”

She readjusted her coat, pulling it down with a sharp tug, and then looked up completely at the Commander. He was amused, she thought, but in the low light and the hazy tinge of booze it was hard to tell. He was probably smiling. She turned back to the stars, thinking that was the end of it.

“Have you told Cassandra you’ve been feeling better lately?” he asked.

“I did, in a way.” She thought back to Cassandra putting a blanket on her. “Not specifically.”

“Oh?”

“I guess I was embarrassed to talk about the dreams with other people after they started getting better. Like they’d come back if I jinxed it, or something.” She crossed her arms, nestling to where her shoulder blades were comfortably bisected by the tree trunk. “Not sure why that is.”

“You’ve talked to Cassandra before, to be fair,” Cullen said, turning beside her. She glanced over, watched as he breathed in and sighed, just as she had outside the bar.

“I have,” Elodie replied, “but she doesn’t know all the details.”

“Oh really?” Cullen asked, his tone serious.

“Some are… embarrassing,” Elodie said as she smiled to herself.

“See, now I have to ask what the details are,” he replied. “If only to get you back for the question about my Templar vows.”

“Well,” Elodie could feel her nose wrinkle as she donned a thoughtful expression. She was pretending to consider telling Cullen, as if she didn’t want to open up to him immediately. She doubted she was convincing. “Cassandra doesn’t know what you do in my dreams, for example.”

Varric did, kind of, but she omitted that for the moment. She was hoping the dwarf had drunk part of it away at the tavern last month, to be honest.

“Is it so embarrassing that I’m essentially your dream bodyguard?”

“No,” Elodie smiled, “I think in a way she’d be jealous of that. But you don’t do _just_ that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t tell you everything before,” she said, biting her lower lip as she looked off towards the snow-covered footpath. Her footprints were still there, somewhere, even if Elodie was unable to pick them out from up where she stood now. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

They were quiet for a moment while she tried to decide if she was really about to tell him about the dream kisses or not. She knew she shouldn’t, and she gripped her biceps harder to keep herself from opening up further. But then he cleared his throat.

“Why do you think I’d be uncomfortable?” he asked, his voice an uncertain whisper. She shot her gaze back to his, trying to read him even as the snowflakes at the edge of her vision swam just slightly. Wait, was it really snowing?

She turned to the sky, blinking away the fat white flakes from her eyelashes. It was. It was snowing, even though the night was clear. Dark clouds to their left bordered the horizon and the gentle breeze carried their precipitation out over the town even though the large expanse above it stayed clear. The effect it gave was magical, like a gentle version of the powerful explosion of frost that Vivienne unleashed to freeze foes.

No, on second thought, it reminded Elodie less of that violence and more of the gentle sprinkling inside of an overturned snowglobe. Elodie smiled and closed her eyes, holding out her palms to catch the crystals on her leather-clad fingers.

She felt herself sway. Closing her eyes had been a mistake. She was going to fall. She reached out for her tree and grabbed onto it hard, digging her fingers instead into soft fabric and taut leather-

Her eyes snapped open in time to see Cullen yank her backwards, keeping her from sliding off the boulder and down the slight curve of the hill leading to the footpath below. She fell forward into his gorget, her fingers finding purchase there, and felt the puff of air on her forehead as he cursed.

“You’d think that with field reflexes such as yours, you’d be less clumsy in the drink,” he groaned as he righted them both in the snow. “Come on now, steady on your feet.”

“What?” she asked, positive at this point that she should go to bed. She could feel Cullen’s hand at her waist, righting her in the snow, and Maker it took her remaining breath away.

Go to bed now, Elodie. That would be what Varric would advise. Don’t tell Cullen anything more, apologize to him in the morning, go to bed right now. It was so inappropriate to be curling her fingers into the grooves and indents of his armor, so wrong to be relishing the way he took her hands in his to pry her off-

“Can’t have you falling, now, can we?”

Elodie looked up at Cullen through her eyelashes, tightening her fingers in his even though she knew he was trying to disentangle himself from her before they became too caught up in the moment. She could feel his palms resting over the back of her hands, and for a second she lied to herself and imagined that he was holding her hands in place instead of trying to take them away.

“Uh-huh,” she murmured.

Falling would be foolish.

His voice had been too warm, too low, too raw. It burned within her, quick as a sip of strong elixir sliding through her chest. Still, even while less than sober, she saw his hesitation. Despite his inner conflict, or maybe slightly because of it, she slid a booted foot forward to draw her hips closer to his. He clenched his jaw hard, as if fighting against blurting something he would regret.

“I should let go of you now,” he said, surprising them both.

“Even if you did,” Elodie whispered, “I can tell there’s something else on your mind.”

“There are several things on my mind, and none of them are appropriate,” Cullen bit out, his tone curt and frustrated.

Elodie exhaled automatically, the wind knocked out of her. His eyes were sharp, his jaw tight, and Elodie struggled to choose what she wanted to feel.

Flattered? Guilty? Upset? Challenged?

He was speaking again. She refocused, frowning.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said,” he repeated, his grip tightening on her waist -when had he grabbed her waist?- as he spoke, “that you invited me out here to keep you company before you embarked on another long journey in the name of the Inquisition. Not for me to paw at you while you’re in your cups.”

“I-” Elodie tilted her head and furrowed her brow further. He’d helped her. She was drunk and he’d helped her. That was what this was… wasn’t it?

Otherwise, this had to be the most chaste pawing Elodie had ever experienced. He could paw further, if he wanted, and she almost suggested that he feel free to do so.

“I’m not that much in my cups,” she said lamely instead.

“Right. Is that why you’re still holding onto me for balance?”

Elodie frowned. That wasn’t why she was holding him, and she opened her mouth to say so. However, his expression kept her words from tumbling forth.

Cullen was closed off. He had seemingly regained a modicum of control, as if he had decided something within himself that he wasn’t about to share with her. She wished she hadn’t drank anything tonight, wished she could look at this situation with clearer eyes, and wished that she could tell him that she was _not_ holding him to keep steady.

But maybe he was right. Her head was swimming pleasantly, the swirls of snowflakes all around them not helping with her equilibrium, and maybe if she was sober she would be able to see this situation clearly. As it was, Elodie couldn’t formulate a response.

She let Cullen go, but he kept a steadying hand at her waist lest she tip over once again. Elodie tried not to focus on the sweet torture of his palm resting easily above her hip bone, near where her belt of fabric cinched, just below her waist. It felt like his hand was emanating heat even through his leather gloves.

“You smell like perfume, by the way,” he said, his fingers immobile against her. “Not bad at all. In case you were wondering.”

“I don’t wear perfume,” Elodie murmured. “You must be imagining things.”

“I must be.”

They stayed in silence for a while long, both of them uncomfortable but not sure what to say or do in a time like this. Elodie pulled up her cowl against the snow falling around them, partially using it as an excuse to hide her face, but the Commander seemed oblivious to the cold. When he brought his free hand to the back of his neck, a gesture that Elodie had grown rather fond of, a wet curl sprung loose and fell tousled to his forehead. He left it there, preoccupied with other thoughts, and Elodie decided it was a good look for him.

Honestly, he still seemed to glow, and that wasn’t the whiskey talking. The lining of his cloak seemed to dance with starlight itself, since the unmelted snowflakes just lay there glistening in the moonlight against the black of his fur. He was beautiful, and this was dangerous.

“Do you want to walk with me?” Elodie asked when she couldn’t stand it anymore. “I think I’d like to walk until I’ve sobered up a bit more.”

“O-of course,” Cullen answered. He moved his palm from her waist and held out his arm for her as they both turned to step down from the boulder. Elodie glanced up at him, trying to read his signals. He was obviously fighting something. She shouldn’t complicate things by touching him at a time like this, even if she wanted to. Even though he’d been the one to continue touching her, however impartially, just now.

“Dalish don’t get escorted around like lords and ladies, you know,” she joked, stepping down from the rock and looking back at him with a smile.

“Oh really?” Cullen asked, returning his arm to his side. “Not even on special occasions?”

“Tell you what,” Elodie said, walking a few paces out. “If you stumble upon a special occasion, you come find me and we’ll go from there.”

Cullen chuckled, seeming to relax. Much as she longed to be closer to him, Elodie was happy that she had pulled back.

“I was meaning to ask more about you and your clan, actually, if it’s not rude of me,” he said, following her down and stepping to her side.

“It’s not rude. I’m flattered,” Elodie replied. “Ask away.”

“Alright. What is the meaning of the markings on your cheeks?”

“My vallaslin?” Elodie asked, almost raising her hand to touch her face, as if to remind herself that they were there. They were barely visible, compared to others who chose bright ink. “It’s a bit complicated.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to-”

“I just mean with me being Andrastian,” she said.

“I… didn’t know that you were faithful to Andraste.”

“Even with me being her Herald?” Elodie asked, enough sarcasm in her tone to make Cullen sweep his gaze away from her in embarrassment.

“I assumed most Dalish elves worshipped their own pantheon. I apologize if I’ve offended you.”

“No, none… no offense taken.”

Elodie regretted her quip. Maybe it had been too harsh. She never expressly said she believed that she was Andraste’s Herald, never stated that she agreed with the fanatics who lauded her mark as holy. Maybe Cullen didn’t assume she did out of respect. She bit her lip, worried that he wouldn’t want to talk for risk of being bitten at again.

“I don’t talk about it much, to be fair,” Elodie said, softer this time. “So you could not have known.”

“Mmm.”

“There are a lot of things the Lavellan clan gets grief for, and one of them is our interaction with humans,” she continued, hoping he could see that she wanted him to know. “It is seen as inappropriate, how cavalier some of my elders are with outsiders. But it’s how I learned about the Chant of Light, and Andraste, and the Maker.”

“I thought that most of the Dalish were pretty isolated, I suppose,” Cullen said.

She glanced over, an eyebrow quirked.

“You mean to tell me you’ve never wondered why I have an Orlesian-sounding name?”

“It didn’t occur to me,” Cullen replied. “I just knew it was quite pretty, as far as names go.”

“You really think so?” Elodie chuckled, secretly aglow with the praise.

“Naturally,” Cullen answered, as if there were no other answer.

She hugged herself against the cold, the tail of her coat fluttering behind her in the breeze.

“Not many of my people shared that opinion. Growing up Dalish with a name like mine was interesting, and I got a few colorful nicknames because of it.”

“Like El?”

“Like Era’harel,” she murmured. He blinked. “It’s… like an arcane horror.”

“Oh.” He frowned, letting the meaning sink in.

“Kids can be cruel,” Elodie shrugged. “I guess there are a lot of things about me that are a bit complicated, once you get into it.” She looked up, smiling at him and tucking her scarf tighter around her neck.

“It doesn’t bother you now? Remembering such things?”

“I mean, I’d prefer that not be your nickname for me, if I’m allowed to choose,” she teased.

“I’d never-”

“Cullen, relax,” she chuckled. “Joking.”

She paused as he forced a smile, one she could see wasn’t super genuine, and realized that they were at the bank of the lake already. She knelt on a whim, sifting through the gravel and snow. Underneath the blanket of cold there were several pebbles worn flat and smooth by waves long past, and she chose one the size of her palm before she stood up.

Elodie angled the pebble, leaned over to the side, and with a flick of her wrist she threw it hard. It skipped against the surface of the frozen lake, sending an echo of eerie tappings into the air around them. She flicked her gaze over, satisfied at the look of surprise on the Commander’s face. She picked up another rock of similar shape, handed it to him. He hesitated.

“Just skip it like you normally do on water,” she said, remembering her fantasy of him with his sleeves rolled up, alive and smiling and relaxed.

In real life, he looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t know how.”

“Y-you never learned?”

He shook his head

“Oh. That’s… don’t worry. It’s pretty easy,” she said after a second, moving behind him. He drew in a quick breath. Elodie was pressing into him more than she meant to, but it was difficult not to. His cloak was warm and inviting, even with the collection of unmelted snowflakes scattered on its fabric.

Under the guise of teaching him, she adjusted herself along the length of Cullen's back. She grabbed his arm, tilting him. He let her, moving when she told him to move.

“The front will be a bit higher, angle it,” she tilted his wrist slightly. “When you throw, flick your wrist like this,” she demonstrated with her own wrist, and his other hand grazed her thigh. Her breath caught in her throat, but she couldn’t tell if the touch had been accidental or not.

“Just like that?” Cullen asked, his voice low. She nodded into his shoulder, and then stepped away. He pulled his arm back slightly.

“More.” An order.

He obeyed, tilting his hand as she’d shown him, and then flicked his wrist. The stone skittered out onto the lake, bouncing only twice before sliding to the middle. Still, he turned to her with a rakish grin, as if he had won a grueling hand of Wicked Grace.

“See?” she said, smiling back. “Not so hard.”

“Is it the same over water?” he asked. “Just a wrist flick like that?”

“We should practice more on frozen water before we work up to liquid water,” Elodie teased. “Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, Commander.”

“It’s not my fault you’re a decent teacher,” he said, and she could hear the smirk in his voice even as she knelt to search for more stones. She searched the bank for smooth ones they could use, grateful for a task to distract herself with. The more she spoke with this man, the more she wanted nothing more than to stay by his side, and that was a confusing emotion at the most sober of times.

The months leading up to the Templar mission had left her feeling comfortable in his presence, but this was different. He felt more real, in a way, more like a person than… what had Sera called him?

Right. A jackboot.

Watching Cullen look up hesitantly at her, his palm outstretched to ask for another rock, it was hard to imagine him as anything so rigid. Even though she saw the serious chill with which he drilled the troops, even though she knew him to be rather aggressive in his war room suggestions, and even though she knew he distanced himself from others to more easily to what needed to be done… she still saw a warmth within Cullen that kept drawing her back to him.

Elodie handed him a small pile of stones and raised an eyebrow.

“Person who gets the most consecutive skips out of five tosses gets to ask the next personal question.”

He glanced out over the layers of ice, then back to her. He narrowed his eyes, returning her look of challenge.

“Deal.”

She lost, mainly because he was a fast learner but also in no small part because of the way Cullen exhaled slightly when he skipped well. It was a small, almost proud noise, as if he wanted to make a triumphant whoop but held himself back.

His competitiveness was almost as endearing as the loose curls that were falling about his face as he relaxed. Melted snow looked good on him, a beautiful accessory. She couldn’t focus with the way his hair fell in front of his eyes as he sent stones skittering across the frozen lake before them.

He beat her tremendously. Trounced her really, with ten continuous skips compared to her best being four in a row.

“I concede,” Elodie giggled, opening her arms in a show of defeat. The act of bending, throwing, and laughing had warmed her; she barely registered the chill of the wind on her cheeks anymore. “Ask me anything. You’ve earned it.”

“I’ll have to think about what interests me most about you,” Cullen joked, his tone decidedly wicked. “There are so many categories I could choose from.”

“Ser, I’d remind you that I am pretending to be a lady,” she said, adopting an offended air.

“A lady who asked me directly upon meeting me if I had taken any vows of celibacy,” he retorted.

“You are never going to let that go, are you!”

“Alright, I’ll be merciful. Are your markings-”

“My vallaslin.”

“-your vallaslin. Sorry. Are they a conflict with Andraste because they’re meant to be religious?”

“Mmm. Yes and no.” Elodie sighed. “For my clan, it was a rite of passage into adulthood, but it could be religious if you made it out to be.” She swung her arms as she walked, trying not to feel embarrassed at the story. “I was never particularly pulled towards any of the Creators, not like I was towards the Maker, but I respect our history. I love our Keeper and her stories. And I loved my father and his markings. So for a lot of reasons, I wanted to continue the tradition.”

“Interesting,” he said.

She scoffed, more of a laugh than anything, when she realized she’d been rambling and had never answered Cullen about her vallaslin to begin with. No wonder he’d asked her again.

“To answer your original question, in the most long-winded way possible, these markings are my personal nod to Mythal.”

“I was wondering if you’d eventually get around to it,” Cullen said, smirking.

“Slightly drunk, remember?” Elodie bit her lip, hardly feeling any warmth that wasn’t from the man beside her anymore. “Mythal was my favorite of the Creators, even if I don’t believe in them as gods, per se.”

“I see.”

Cullen moved alongside her as they looped around to where they could walk the  perimeter of the frozen lake, the green glow of the breach reflecting up from the glassy surface onto their armor. Their glved fingers brushed against one another as they walked, but neither moved away. Elodie waited, intuitively sensing that he wanted to say something else.

“In Kirkwall,” Cullen said carefully, “I was in a pretty weird personal place, even before the whole thing went under. I read during a lot of my free time, trying to get a grasp on the way the world was. But even though I’ve read a few texts on the subject, I still feel as if I should know more about the Dalish than I do.”

“Have you ever interacted with Dalish elves before me?”

“I’m sure I have,” Cullen said, looking out over the lake as they navigated its banks. “I mean… I must have. At some point.”

Their rocks lay in a little pile near the center, aglow like beacons on the surface. Frost crunched under their boots, their warm breath making tiny clouds of vapor about them as they strolled.

“Some of the elves I knew were from alienages. Some were freed Tevinter slaves. I remember one in particular who had markings unlike any I had ever seen.” Cullen looked over at her, blinked. “That’s not to say I assume all elves are the same. I’m familiar with the fact that city elves and the Dalish have entirely different customs in some respects.”

“You’re right,” Elodie said, looking over with feigned suspicion. “You seem to already know a bit about us,” she prodded. “Any particular reason why you’re interested?”

He paused, a fondness ghosting over his features. Or was that a trick of the light from the breach? He cleared his throat, his expression shifting slightly.

“Interest for interest’s sake, I suppose. There weren’t as many books on Dalish customs in the circle as one would think,” Cullen said, easy sarcasm marking his tone. “So, just as an example, I knew that blood writing existed but was at a loss as to what the significance or purpose is.” He narrowed his eyes. “But my lack of knowledge is definitely not deliberate.”

“I believe you," Elodie said with a smile. "If there were books on the Dalish, you would have read them?”

“I would have and did,” Cullen replied. “What ones we had, anyway.”

“Why, though?” Elodie pressed on. Cullen was circling, whether he realized it or not, and Elodie needed to know. "Why does it matter?"

“Because they seem exotic,” he finally answered, and Elodie looked up in time to see him glancing across the frozen lake, as if recalling something related to that. He chuckled. “Unique.”

“My people?” Elodie asked, frowning, trying to suppress the slight prickle she felt at the phrasing. She’d been jeered at before with those same excuses, and she had never liked this insinuation that humans were ‘normal’ while she was something ‘special’. Maybe humans were the exotic ones. Elves had been around much longer, after all.

Cullen shook his head, frowning.

“No, I meant your blood writing,” he said, and then his eyes widened when he realized how he had sounded. “Maker’s breath… Elodie, I never meant to insinuate that you or your people-”

“It’s alright, I think we understand each other,” she said, exhaling her relief. Cullen looked truly surprised, if not a bit ashamed. He clamped his jaw shut, seeming less than satisfied at his cut-off apology, but Elodie believed that he meant it. He didn't have to explain.

She tried to assuage him by directing the conversation back to the original topic.

“Vallaslin are all unique in their own ways, you’re right about that. To me, mine were to show I could endure some pain and to feel a bond with my father. I chose the same Creator that he did.”

“It’s wonderful that you could share that with him.”

“I think so too,” Elodie murmured. She smiled, remembering. “He said Mythal was a protector, a compassionate being, and I could see why that appealed to him. It’s how my father was as a person. I liked that. I’d still like to become that, too, someday.”

“I think you're already that kind of person,” Cullen replied, undeniable tenderness in his voice. She drew her lower lip in to bite back a nervous laugh, smiling at her feet as she basked in the compliment. She wasn’t used to having Cullen’s attention so fully on her, and she wondered vaguely if he thought these things in the daylight as well.

“How about you?” Elodie asked, feeling more clear-headed and steady now. She looked up, adopting an expression of boldness.

“Me?”

“That scar, on your lip,” she replied, tapping a finger to her own mouth mirroring where his was. He couldn’t have ignored the way she was drawn to it. “What’s that from?”

“Oh,” he grinned, stretching the scar a bit, making it whiter against the contrast of his skin. “I was punched in the face.”

“You were not.”

“I was,” he chuckled. Elodie glanced over, watched as his shoulders straightened and his whole aura seemed to glow with a kind of pride. She crossed her arms, attempting to subdue the heat he elicited in her without even trying. He turned to her, his eyes bright, and added, “I did deserve it.”

“Why am I not surprised that you think that?” Elodie asked, smirking.

“You think I didn’t?” he asked, incredulous.

“It’s hard to imagine,” she acknowledged, trying not to give him too much. He chuckled darkly.

“You didn’t know me before Haven. There are… a lot of things in my past that I am not proud of,” Cullen said, his voice firm, reminding Elodie briefly of a tutor she’d met while traveling through the Free Marches as a child. She squinted at him in the dark, somehow not buying it.

“I think I should hear the story, judge for myself,” she insisted.

“It’s complicated,” Cullen said.

“So is being an Andrastian Dalish,” Elodie teased, reaching out to gently push at his elbow with her own in a friendly nudge. “Let’s hear it.”

“You get the abridged version, seeing as you lost the stone’s throw,” the Commander replied, looking like he was trying not to let her see him smile as he spoke. “To put it too simply, I used to be very opinionated on the subject of mages. I thought some… incredibly harsh things about how mages should be governed.”

“For example?”

“For example… that they could not be trusted as people.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t agree with him, but tried to reason out what it might have been like for that younger version of Cullen. “I mean, you said you were in Kirkwall when it was bad, right? So I guess… it makes sense you would feel that way.”

“Felt that way,” he corrected.

“You don’t still suspect mages?” Elodie inquired.

“It… is not that simple,” he breathed. “I find it difficult not to be wary of them, but I do not feel that they are less deserving of freedom and respect. Not as I once did.”

He glanced over, like he was waiting for her to keep interrogating him, so Elodie fell silent. She didn't know enough about the Circles, about Templars, to question him further. With that, Cullen continued.

“Before Kirkwall, I had some unsavory experiences and therefore some unsavory opinions. Looking back, I know that I was wrong, but I thought I was completely vindicated- especially on the subject of mage and Templar relations. I spoke out of turn to someone, not realizing that they and several members of their entourage were mages.”

“The staffs across their backs didn’t clue you in?” Elodie joked.

“Very funny,” Cullen chastised. Elodie wondered at the part of her that really liked it when he did so. He looked like he could make even punishment a sweet thing. She shuddered, trying to concentrate only on his words and not his mouth.

“So then what?”

“I said something, several things actually, that were completely untoward. One of those things earned me a swift punch from an armored fist, giving me this,” he gestured to his upper lip.

“Ouch.”

“Not the worst of my scars, but it serves as a visible reminder to watch what I say more closely.”

“Is that why you were so unphased by Chancellor Roderick’s comments before? Why you didn’t lash back and tear him a new one?” Elodie asked. He laughed. She kicked out at a pebble to keep herself from saying how angry the Chancellor had made her with his comments about both Cullen and the Inquisition itself.

“Did I really seem that calm?” he asked. She nodded, and he smirked in response, stretching his scar. “Like I said before, he’s toothless. He was looking for a reaction in order to justify his frustration. Better to deny him one.”

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t an annoying tit,” Elodie said under her breath. Cullen laughed again, a sound that echoed slightly across the frozen lake, a sound Elodie decided she would work hard to draw from him at any given opportunity.

“No it does not.” He watched her kneel to cut a piece of elfroot and put it in one of her many pouches lining her belt, then asked, “What about your…” he gestured to her temple, where a deep line drew over her eyebrow and cheek.

“You know,” Elodie said, straightening up and adjusting her cowl against the steady snow, “I thought you were more interested in my vallaslin than my scars.”

“Scars I can guess at. Elven traditions, however, are something I know nothing about,” Cullen answered, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lip. Elodie turned to the clouds slowly advancing upon them, the slight wind bracing her nerves.

“So guess, then. How do you think I got this scar?”

“I…” he paused, turned to face her. She turned around as well and blinked up at him, attempting to keep her face neutral and relaxed under his scrutiny. He raised a gloved hand to her brow but paused before his fingers could slip underneath of the cowl and touch her skin. “May I?”

“Of course,” she answered, not sure what she was agreeing to and yet disturbingly at peace with that fact.

Cullen reached up and pulled her curls back and away from her face, tucking them further under her cowl. Elodie tried to keep her ear from twitching when his fingers brushed against its tip, tried to keep from making any sound lest he stop touching her.

He pressed his thumb to her brow, looking carefully at how close to her eye the mark came. She flinched at the cool leather, and his jaw clenched as if he were about to apologize. Instead, he traced his fingers down her cheek, most likely trying to judge whether the blow that dealt this mark had come from above or below.

She watched him look at her, his expression clinical; it was different from the way he looked at her in the quiet moments at Haven, when he thought she didn’t notice. This look was stern, intimidating. He was calculating, or attempting to anyway. Even less than sober, she could tell he was a bit distracted.

She glanced over his features, free so long as he was touching her to drink her fill. The tip of his nose was pink, as were his cheeks, as if he were colder than he was letting on. She fought the urge to reach up and mirror the way he was touching her face, to test and see if his skin was as cold as it looked.

She could warm him, easily, if he let her.

His hand angled back and turned to cup her cheek, and Elodie automatically closed her eyes and tipped up her chin. She made a small noise, willing him to close the gap, but he did not. He cleared his throat, pulling away, and she opened her eyes to his retreat.

“I’d say some kind of whip did that,” Cullen said, his voice tight. “Small, thin, fast. Down,” he gestured with one hand in a swipe, “from the top of your face.”

“Very close, Commander,” she conceded, happy to hear that her voice was steady. They started walking again, rounding back towards the way they’d come. The snow had already covered their footprints from before with a light dusting, as if trying to keep them a secret from the world. “I was little, and our Keeper was trying to repair something on our aravel. A piece of taut wire snapped and flew up, and I wasn’t fast enough. It split my face open, but luckily it missed my eye.”

“How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

“It seems like a deep cut, to scar in such a way more than a decade later. How bad was it?”

“Very,” Elodie chuckled. “My father was aghast. Our healer was amazing though, so I didn’t suffer much. Well, besides not being allowed to go swimming with the other children while the stitches healed over.” She glanced up at him. “Thanks for not asking about it first, actually. I don’t notice it much, since I’ve had it for so long, but I know it’s quite prominent.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Cullen said. “Anybody with any sense would be more focused on how captivating your eyes are, anyway.”

Elodie felt her nerves bloom at the sweet words, her pulse speeding up just slightly. He was doing that a lot tonight, complimenting her, praising her, flirting with her. Did he realize that he was doing it? Before she could open her mouth to ask him, Cullen cleared his throat. Glancing over, she could see that he had one hand at the nape of his neck, dragging along his skin as if to cool it down. It was then that Elodie wondered if he had meant to let the praise slip out in the first place.

“You’re planning on leaving in the morning for the Storm Coast, are you not?” he asked, his voice sterner than it had been a second ago.

“I am.”

“I trust you know your limits, but I should also let you get some rest,” Cullen said quietly. “You’ve got a long journey ahead of you.”

“I’m glad you stayed with me until I was more sober,” Elodie confessed as they walked back, their shadows mingling in the night behind them. “I don’t know if I would have slept well otherwise.”

“Of course. It’s what I’m here for.”

“Sleep aid to the Herald? I’m flattered,” she said, bitterness only slightly tainting the edge of her voice as she smiled.

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know.”

“While we’re on the subject,” he said. “If I were commenting as the Commander to the Herald, I would say that she’s doing a fine job of securing allies for the Inquisition, and to keep up the good work.”

She scoffed good-naturedly, but he wasn’t finished. He lowered his voice.

“But if I were speaking as merely Cullen to Elodie, I would tell her that I’m proud of how devoted she is. Because she didn’t have to be.”

“Hmm. Didn’t she?” Elodie asked, maybe more to herself. Cullen didn’t answer her, and they walked together in comfortable silence until they reached her door.

“Will you be warm enough tonight?” he asked her, and she turned with wide eyes at his statement. His brow twitched, then he seemed to realize what he’d implied. Elodie could almost see the steam from the snowflakes that hit his flushed face. “No! Not like… I only meant to ask if you required any more blankets or firewood before I-” he cut himself off, covering his mouth with his hand and whispering a small curse under his breath. Elodie laughed, moving forward to shake his shoulder gently.

“I’ll be fine. Get inside, you’re the one without anything to cover your ears.”

Maker, he was sturdy. Trying to shake him just drove the point home that underneath of all his armor the man was also built with rigid muscle. Elodie let out a nervous giggle at the mental image.

“My ears are slightly less sensitive than yours, I’d assume,” he murmured from behind his hand.

“Doesn’t make you less susceptible to catching a cold,” she joked back, her fingers still at his shoulder, their gloved tips shoved deeper into the fur lining than she realized. She pulled them away reluctantly, placing her palm on the doorhandle instead as she watched him go to leave.

He nodded, dropped his hand from his mouth to the pommel of his sword, and turned to take a few steps towards the Chantry; but then he stopped. She watched him and wondered what he was fighting, what he was hesitating over, and then something in him snapped. He turned back to her, cleared the distance in two long strides, and wrung his hands before her as if he had to stop himself from reaching out to her.

“Elodie, forgive me. I must know, or it will eat away at me,” he said, his tone filling Elodie’s chest with fluttering hope. He clenched his jaw, then bit out, “What else do I do in your dreams?”

It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say, actually. The nervous look she was interpreting for affection now seemed, the closer she examined him, like someone fearing that they were guilty of something heinous. It was like he expected to have done something horrible to her, and given the nature of the nightmares she didn’t blame him for thinking so.

“Ah…” she faltered, unsure of how to explain.

Should she even explain at all?

Elodie brought a hand up to fluff her curls as she pushed her cowl back, looking at the pathway they’d just come from and thinking of how simple it would be to tell him goodnight. She knew that he would never mention it again if she did, knew that he would walk away and politely decline to bother her with it further.

“Cullen, I don’t want you to-”

“I know you think I’ll be uncomfortable, but I’m willing to endure it,” Cullen stated firmly.

She glanced back at him, at how he was standing with his hands clutched before him, shifting his weight, a firm expression of resolve on his slightly flushed face. She exhaled, certain she would never have another opportunity. She would leave tomorrow, possibly for weeks on end, and he was only here tonight. She had to alleviate his misplaced discomfort, lest it eat away at him in her absence as he’d said it would.

“Hold still, then,” she ordered, and he frowned. She did not waver. “I’m going to show you.”

She watched as his breastplate fell slightly with his unconscious exhale, as loose blonde curls, wet and unruly from the snow, brushed against his forehead. While she watched, his expression changed from a kind of upset shock to mild acceptance. He stood there, a look of readiness written on his face, as if he expected her to hurt him and was prepared not to cry out. As if he thought he had hurt her in her dreams, even though she’d told him he hadn’t.

Cullen would feel like he deserved it, Elodie realized. Like an armored punch to the face. The urge to soothe him instead of hurt him, to protect him instead of judge him, was almost overwhelming. Elodie had to clench her hands into tight fists to keep from dragging him into her arms by the neck.

She frowned, then closed her eyes, trying to recall the nightmare images. It would be easier for her to keep her resolve if she didn’t watch his reaction. She breathed in deeply, conjuring up the mental image of the Commander without his armor, of the way he called to her in the gray and green.

In the dreams, he would reach out to her: that was what she would do for him now.

She opened her arms slowly and sought him out blindly until he stepped forward and closed the gap of distance between them. She shivered, more from the sensation of his breastplate coming into contact with her palms than the cold outside, and then drew her hands up and over Cullen’s armor in a gentle caress.

She heard his hitched breath, felt him tense even beneath his pauldrons. Leather and buckles creaked underneath of his layers as he adjusted himself, trying to stand straighter for her, unsure of what was to come.

When her fingertips reached his elbow, she moved his arms to her waist, trailing fingers down his gauntlets, telling herself that realistically she had still never felt his bare arms. The thought thrilled her, slight guilt welling up shortly thereafter.

But he did not fight her. He could pull away if he hated this, or say something to stop her, Elodie rationalized. He wouldn’t let her force him. She continued, trailing her hands back up over his chest, up to his neck to reach for his face.

Her gloved fingertips skimmed the stubble on his neck, and she felt his throat jump with his gasp before she heard the tiny noise of surprise. He swallowed hard as her palms grazed his pulse and moved up until they were cupping his jaw, her fingertips by his earlobes.

With gentle hands, Elodie drew him down and he bent his head for her. She indulged in dragging her left hand over to his chin, indulged in touching her thumb to his scar. She was already so fond of it; did he have others she had yet to see? He must.

Underneath of a thin layer of halla leather, she felt his lips part for her. His lower lip opened just slightly, and she had the vaguest sensation that if she were to press down with her thumb, sliding the digit past his lower lip, Cullen would bite on it gently without question.

Elodie wished more than anything that she were not wearing gloves, that she could open her eyes, but she had to keep some semblance of distance lest she get completely carried away. He would let her do so much more, if she did it. He would allow her to explore in this moment, with her eyes closed and her thumb moving lower still to rest on his chin. She could feel the warm clouds of their breath mingling in the small space between them, could feel his fingers refusing to move on her waist until she signaled she wanted them to.

Andraste preserve her, she wanted them to.

But they didn’t, and Elodie made no move to change that. That wasn’t what the dream was, and she would not lie to him even about this. She tilted Cullen’s head ever so slightly downwards with the merest pressure of her fingertips on his jaw, and reveled in the fact that he responded so easily to her faintest of touches.

Before she lost her nerve, Elodie stood on her toes and brushed a warm kiss across Cullen’s temple. Maker, his skin was cool to the touch, melted snow on the corner of his brow catching cold on her lips. His hands at her waist, almost mechanical in their immobility, tightened at the touch. He groaned, almost inaudibly, a minuscule noise that she knew for a fact he hadn’t meant to let escape. That was what finally forced her eyes open.

She saw her thumb on his chin, her fingers splayed against his cheekbone, his curls so close with snowflakes glimmering through the gold. His eyes were open and fixated on hers, his gaze questioning and raw. They both retreated slowly, pulling apart in unspoken understanding. Neither of them commented on the fact that Elodie left her hand on his cheek for a moment too long, or that he seemed to lean into it for a fraction of a second before they parted.

Warmth seemed to flow from her sternum down to pool between her legs, the merest of touches leaving her aching and confused. Elodie struggled to keep her breathing normal and even, and tried to meet Cullen’s gaze with as steady an expression as she could muster. What would he do if he knew what the slightest of his touch did to her?

The night felt colder somehow as his hands left her waist, and Elodie watched as Cullen cleared his throat and drew a hand across his mouth as if trying to capture words about to escape.

“That’s… all?” he asked, his voice husky.

She nodded, barely able to breathe, no less speak.

“Good,” he whispered, the vapor catching in the air, his relief visible. Elodie frowned, aching for the tender moment to reclaim itself, but now there was only uncertainty.

Was Cullen happy that she didn’t press further into him? Should she not have kissed him in the first place? It had been inappropriate, but Elodie knew that she liked him, and Cullen had to know she liked him, too. He looked up at her finally, his expression barely restrained.

“If it was even half as sweet as that in your dreams, I can accept it. But if I’d hurt you in any way…” he shook his head, a gesture so slight she was certain he didn’t realize he’d done it. He took a short, bracing breath, and finished, “I couldn’t bear the thought.”

“Never,” she whispered back, a slow blush warming the crest of her cheeks and bridge of her nose as the words traveled in steam to his chest. “You’re gentle. That the nightmare takes you from me is what makes it so terrifying.”

He let out a breath of surprise, and she did as well, numbness at her bravery suffusing her entire being.

It was true, even if she didn’t know why she’d felt the need to be so honest. Cullen being hurt, Cullen not being around… it was too painful to think about. She barely had any whiskey left in her system to blame her honesty on, though, and she reached up reflexively to draw a curl behind her ear in lieu of continuing to speak.

She hoped the pink in her cheeks was hidden in part by her vallaslin, or at least by the tan she seemed to have collected from long days in the Hinterlands sun. Whatever it was that helped, Cullen seemed oblivious to her embarrassment. He brought a hand up behind his neck, a smile of tentative pleasure on his lips.

“I need to get back to work,” he said quietly.

“Of course.”

“When will you return to Haven?”

He’d stumbled slightly before that final word, as if another one had been on the tip of his tongue before he’d substituted it. What else did he want her to return to? Elodie’s heart clenched at the thought.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But hopefully soon.”

“Keep me posted,” he said, then frowned. “I mean us, all of us. We worry about you when you leave.”

“I’ll be sure to be careful, and if anything should come up I’ll inform Leliana straight away,” Elodie promised, her hand back on the doorhandle. “Goodnight Cullen.”

“Maker watch over you,” he said, his voice reverent and firm. As Elodie watched him turn and march back to the Chantry, it felt to her like an actual blessing instead of just a standard goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That explanation of Cullen's scar is entirely based off of the tumblr post circulating (can't seem to find it atm) that references him being punched in the face for mouthing off. You know the one. I'll link it later to be sure.


	4. Braiding Bluebells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, one in which Elodie laments her own mind seemingly being out to get her.

The dreams started again, but thankfully the gray and red swatches of violence had been replaced, and a new uneasiness had taken their spot in the back of Elodie’s mind. No longer did she dream of Cullen’s death, or of Josephine’s pleas. No longer did she wander through cages with furniture on the ceiling and spikes of red lyrium crystal sprouting from the ground around her. Instead, she found her sleeping self constantly on the forested outskirts near the city of Jader, where she had last seen her father.

In the dream world, everything was iridescent and glimmering, like fragments of a shattered wine glass were suspended in midair. It felt sharp, in a way, as well. Elodie reached out her palms to the sky and could almost feel the light cutting gently into her like splinters too small to see.

The first time she saw her father, he was working on loading pelts into a trunk, folding them painstakingly slowly and petting each of them as if they were alive. Elodie walked over, intrigued.

“What are you doing, Da?” she asked, her voice younger, less harsh, more open. Her father turned, slow like he was moving underwater.

“Packing for your trip.”

“My trip?” Elodie asked. “Where am I going?”

“Didn’t Keeper Deshanna tell you, _din’assan_?”

“Tell me what?” she prodded, confused and suspicious. She could feel her arms go prickly with gooseflesh as realization hit her. “Why… why did you call me that?”

Her father's face finally lifted to hers, his hair rippling about his cheekbones.

The sadness therein made Elodie flinch back. His face, just as tanned as hers, his marks of Mythal more prominent and darker brown than her own- it twisted into something she hardly recognized.

“You’re being sent away,” he croaked, his voice weaker than she remembered it ever being. “But that won’t keep you from safe. He found you once. He’ll find you again. Even now, he’s coming.”

He kicked over the trunk filled with pelts, and from the overturned pile of furs a figure began to rise. Slowly and somehow menacingly, it took on a humanoid shape, still covered by countless skins of animals long-dead. A hand reached out from underneath of them, milky-white and elegant. With outstretched fingers, it gestured to her father as Elodie watched.

Her father moved forward, his robes floating about him as if he were being pushed underneath of a strong current of water, and the figure drew two long fingers over his eyes for him to close them. Her father crumpled immediately into a heap, becoming fur pelts himself.

Elodie screamed for him, looking up in time to see shards of green crash into her eyes as the breach fell from the heavens.

She woke up in a cold sweat, unable to catch her breath, the smell of prophet’s laurel and tree bark still on her palms when she dragged her hands over her face to recenter her thoughts. Shakily, she checked her limbs one by one, a habit she’d begun recently in order to assess what was real and what was not. She could still feel the ache in her legs when she squeezed her thighs, the soreness from riding. She could feel the pull in her wrist from having drawn her bow too tightly yesterday. That was real. The dream was not.

In this way, she panicked less than she had with the nightmares, and she found her breathing returning to normal in only a matter of minutes. But these dreams, no matter how quickly she recovered from them, were just as disconcerting. They were on an entirely different level, if Elodie were being honest. She began to lose her appetite as the current expedition progressed, since she was immersed in thought most mornings and busy during the day on various missions along the coast. She ate dinner with them all around the fire, listening to Varric’s stories and Solas’ retellings.

Luckily, Cassandra didn’t seem to notice Elodie’s energy dip. The Seeker was not reading as much, and took third watch now in order to sleep when Elodie slept. The dynamic had shifted, and not for better or worse; it was simply something that was. Getting used to it reminded Elodie of when they would meet other aravels during her childhood and then leave them behind near the next city. Whatever friends she made traveling, whatever stories they told, seemed like dreams to her after a while. She never saw most of the other children again.

For as much as she had learned to let go of friendships before, and as much as she knew she would see them again soon, Elodie found herself missing the company of the other two women. She missed the tea at night and the silver thread in her hart’s antlers at dawn.

One morning, after the vision of her father sinking to the ground in a sad heap would not leave her eyelids no matter what she tried, Elodie decided she couldn’t stay listless and yearning. It was decidedly not in her to flail around mooning at the fact that she’d chosen to bring along people she wasn’t necessarily that close to yet on this journey. In a half-hearted attempt to replicate the distraction Sera had offered her once, she walked Boosifus out to a clearing and got him to kneel for her.

The animal obeyed, settling on the grass with only a mild snort of confusion, the dark shadows of the cool morning casting creepy shapes along his auburn flanks. Elodie found comfort in the shadows, oddly enough; at least they were different from what she’d seen in either of her nightmares, and she could focus on staying in the moment more easily. She wandered around the perimeter of the clearing while Boosifus nibbled at an itch on his leg, and she collected what flowers she could see and gathered them in the crook of her left arm. After she had a formidable pile of them, she walked back to her hart and sat directly opposite him on an old log.

She began to braid the flowers together by their stems, linking them to one another in a long chain of woven greenery. It was relaxing, and the weaving motion paired with her hart’s contented snuffles as they sat apart from the smoky morning noises of the camp were enough to distract Elodie from her thoughts.

After a while, the movements became even more automatic, and Elodie could barely tell what flowers she was weaving in next. When the rising sun split the clouds to her back and cast a golden, buttery glow on the wet leaves around her, for a moment she couldn’t even tell where she was anymore. Blinking, she tried to remember what she was doing.

Was she back home with her father just out of earshot? Looking to avoid saying goodbye to the other children? She shook her head, tying a tiny knot through the stem of the last blue blossom she had in her lap. She held out the chain of delicate links and sighed. She was definitely not with her clan, but she was evidently trying to escape something.

As she draped the length of flowers over her hart’s antlers, looping them back and forth between the friendship bracelets, she thought back to the last time she’d been at Haven. Two weeks ago, now, was it? She’d gotten tipsy with Sera, who’d wanted to go out with her again the very next day. Elodie had listened to the bard for hours during the drinking game. She’d tried honey whiskey. And she’d taught Cullen how to skip rocks as she explained her vallaslin.

Her hands paused, hovering over Boosifus’ forehead. He blinked up at her with large, trusting eyes, but she wasn’t seeing him. She was reliving the conversation, the slightly tipsy, overly indulgent conversation, that she’d had with a similarly trusting creature before leaving Haven. Elodie sighed deeply, wondering if every conversation she had with Cullen from now on would result in affected dreams. The thought infuriated her, as if her mind were tainting something sweet without her permission. She lashed out with the hand holding the linked stems, throwing them upwards.

When she tossed the rest of the blue flowers haphazardly over Boosifus’ antlers to snap herself out of it, the chain she’d spent so long weaving broke apart in several places. A few petals fell directly on the hart’s soft velvety nose as the chain collapsed, but he didn’t seem to mind. He blinked, like he was waiting for her to calm down again. Rather than brush them off, Elodie sat on the ground and leaned her back on the log with her arms crossed.

Her hart was right. She should calm down. She knew that if she tried to think her way out of this cycle logically, there had to be a solution. She had to be able to talk to Cullen without spurring further nightmares. She had to.

The other option, the option of avoiding him from here on out, left her feeling queasy.

Why, though? Why was she so insistent on them conversing together? Maybe she _could_ just avoid him, and then the dreams would clear up naturally like they had before. That would overall be the easiest solution.

But she didn’t want to. The thought alone twisted in her gut like she’d been hit with a dulled arrow; it glanced off of her, but left the feeling of being bruised deep within. She didn’t want to imagine a future where Cullen didn’t look over at her across the war table with a knowing glint in his eyes, or a future where she couldn’t talk to him about their lives before the world started to fold inward on itself. She didn’t like the idea of avoiding him after he’d confessed that he’d benefited from her company, either. He'd told her as much, hadn't he? That he liked being around her. If she avoided him now, what would he feel?

The word that came to mind was cold. He would mirror her and close her off, succinct and controlled, like ice across a lonely lake.

“Meditating, are we?” a voice asked from just a few feet behind her. Elodie spun, her bow half-drawn, and watched as Solas merely raised an eyebrow without flinching. “Apparently ruminating on some rather touchy subjects. I apologize for interrupting you. I’ll take my leave.”

“No, no,” Elodie hurried to protest, putting her bow back down on the ground beside her. She leaned back over the log towards Solas. “Please don’t.”

He was looking at her as if she were touched in the head, but he had stopped like she’d asked. At least there was that.

“You’re positive I’m not disturbing you?”

“No. I mean yes, I’m sure that you’re not.”

He seemed to be biting back a smile but Elodie could hardly tell.

“It would do me some good to have some company,” she said, exasperated. One day, she reasoned, people were going to beg her to spend time with them instead of the other way around. One day.

Solas’ lips drew into a thin line that made Elodie tilt her head. Was that his concerned face? She hadn’t figured out how to read him well yet, and he gave very little away.

“I’m happy to be of help,” he replied, glancing at her hart as he moved closer to stand on the other side of the log. “You’ve been trying your hand at fashion design I see. Maybe it’s a good thing I relieved Vivienne of her duties in the party when I did.” Elodie plucked blue petals away from the mount’s face and mirrored Solas’s smirk.

“Maybe. However, this is more of an homage to Sera than anyone else.”

“Ah.” His smile, however small to begin with, vanished entirely. “I was wondering what child wove you such... unique tokens, but it makes sense that Sera made these,” he said, gesturing to the little misshapen bracelets lining the hart’s antlers.

“Forgive me but… you and Sera don’t seem to be very close,” Elodie said, for lack of anything better to note.

Solas’s eyebrows furrowed, and Elodie could just tell he had thought something sarcastic that he was not about to say. He was good at that, at making her wonder what he was thinking. It’s why she questioned him and found him so fascinating. Everyone else seemed to open rather easily to her prying. Solas, however, maintained a respectable distance.

“Why is that?” she asked, attempting to bridge that gap.

“It could be the fact that she makes fart noises at the drop of a hat,” he quipped. “Or that she and Blackwall seem to have conspired to interview me ad infinitum. Unlike my conversations with you, theirs lead to nowhere.”

Elodie wondered at why that made her ears feel warm, but she focused on picking apart the petals of the blue flowers in her lap while Boosifus watched with baleful eyes.

“I don’t mean to pin so many questions on you,” she started to say, but Solas stopped her.

“Far be it from me to discourage genuine curiosity,” he replied. “Especially when your eyes light up the way that they do when I speak of the fade.”

She cleared her throat, amazed at the compliment. Dreams had always fascinated her, especially lately, but Elodie had thought she hid that thrill easily enough.

Apparently not.

She shut her mouth tighter, biting back the urge to ask him what else he noticed about her. She was genuinely curious about more than just his magic or his past. She wanted to know why he felt so… electric to be near.

Her hart nuzzled into her thighs to try halfheartedly to eat a few of the crumpled stems, making her flinch at how close his antlers were. Elodie gently pushed on his forehead to get him to lift himself away from her, and he moved exactly as she willed it.

“You’re very good with him,” Solas commented, and Elodie glanced over at her companion. Solas looked a touch envious.

“He’s a big softy.”

“He seems it, doesn’t he?” The elf sounded wistful, impressed even. Elodie narrowed her eyes in question.

“Are harts normally difficult to get close to?”

“For most,” he acknowledged. “This one is a Brecilian Sure-foot, if I’m not mistaken?” He didn’t sound like a man who often thought himself mistaken, to be fair, but Elodie nodded anyway. He reached over, holding his hand out over the hart’s antlers. “This breed is especially prone to being solitary. Normally they are not the most affectionate, even with elves.” The animal looked from Elodie to Solas then back again to Elodie, as if trying to see who to listen to. Solas made a tiny click noise with his tongue, but Boosifus maintained deliberate eye contact with Elodie as he waited. She nodded, blinking long and slow. Boosifus turned to the mage and rose on steady feet, allowing Solas to trail his hand along the beast’s snout as it stood.

“He likes you,” Elodie said, wondering why she felt like she was channeling Sera, and why she was guiltily hoping that sentiment didn’t reach Solas.

“No he doesn’t. But he senses that you do.”

Solas looked over, a half-smile playing on edge of his lips, and Elodie could almost feel his momentary satisfaction as if it were a tangible warmth on her skin.

“And that’s enough for him,” he added.

Elodie struggled to contain her pleased smile.

“I’ve always been pretty good with animals,” Elodie admitted. “Halla were always a particular favorite of mine, but harts were high up there as well.”

“The halla were still skittish around you, though, I imagine?”

“No.” She could move among herds, even herds in the wild, and it was as if the halla accepted her and allowed her passage among them. "No, I would have to work hard to spook them."

“Even with you being a hunter? The Lavellan clan protector, as it were?”

She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but rather than annoy Elodie it only seemed to stoke the fire. She wanted to prove him wrong, or at the very least see him flustered the way he flustered her.

“I protected our own halla from those that would harm them, just like I did with my clan members. I think they could tell.”

“Your clan, or the halla?” he teased.

“Oh ha, ha.” Elodie kicked out her boot, shaking her armor so that it reflected the rising rays of the sun in pinks and yellows onto her cheeks. She did find herself grinning a bit wider, found that the aches of her muscles were now just a secondary thought. She turned to him more fully, blinking in the morning sun. “Speaking of the halla, mainly.”

“But you do hunt halla for skin and meat, do you not?”

The way he said ‘you’ made Elodie narrow her eyes. Solas did not seem like a city elf, but did he feel himself so far removed from the Dalish as well?

“ _We_ do. But always while showing the proper respect, as you well know,” she said pointedly, trying to get a reading on where he stood. Solas, however, gave nothing away.

“And their predators? Did you hunt them as well?”

“Sometimes. Other times, it was a live and let live situation. It hurt to do so, but I tended to let wolves and bears do as they wished if a wild herd was following us, so long as the predators weren’t overpopulated in the area.”

“What do you mean, do as they wished?” Solas asked.

Elodie looked up at him, shrugging.

“Sometimes the wolves would get hold of a halla, an august ram, a nug, whatever. They’d tear it apart, but it would be for food. It would be out of necessity. Technically I’m categorized as a predator as well, even if I don’t use my bare hands. Does a bow and arrow make me so different from the more dangerous of the animals?”

“Hmm. If you had to identify with one over the other, which would you choose?”

“Who’s interviewing whom?” she evaded, pulling apart a flower by its petals as she shot Solas a playful look of suspicion.

“I suppose I am curious about you as well,” Solas answered, his tone low and curt.

Elodie tried not to let it show how surprised she was at the admission.

“I’m, ah, not sure which I feel drawn to,” she replied, a stutter on the edge of her voice as she gathered her thoughts. “It depends on the situation.”

“You realize that your clan symbol is a halla, don’t you? Your vallaslin even mirrors its antlers. But you’d still consider siding with the wolf, in our hypothetical situation?”

Elodie couldn’t tell if his tone was one of incredulity or reproach, could never tell with Solas if he was just imparting knowledge or actively judging her. It made her feel like a kid receiving a lecture, petulant and fidgety.

“Wolves have to eat too,” she said, frowning down at her lap. “In the wild, you don’t choose sides. You learn to coexist and survive. So… I suppose I identify with both, at the same time.”

All living creatures held a pull for Elodie. Even as a hunter, she was not someone who looked at a living thing and simply saw meat or hide. In the same sense, as Herald to the Inquisition, she couldn’t understand it when others thought she should make decisions as if living things were simply opportunity or power to be used. If it drew breath, it deserved a healthy dose of respect-- even if it deserved to die. She didn’t expect someone who’d lived as an apostate to understand.

“I admire that.”

Elodie glanced up in disbelief and was met with a kind smile. Solas’ eyes were soft, not judgmental, and his tone was as rich as the light filtering through the thickening clouds behind them. Elodie tucked heavy curls behind her ears, trying to angle her face so that if any warmth was showing on it, there was a chance it would be eclipsed by the rays of the sun.

“Would it upset you if I asked you more about the fade?” she blurted, her fingers moving downward and snapping the stems of the flowers in her lap without her even realizing. Solas glanced down at them, then back at her eyes. He sat down next to her on the ground and Boosifus lost interest. The huge mount began to roam in search of sweet clover, blue petals trailing behind him as he shook his head back and forth.

“Not at all,” Solas answered, crossing his arms and settling in beside her. She wondered if he was going to comment again about her eyes, wanted to ask him exactly what it is that she did that pleased him so, but she merely cleared her throat.

“When you sleep and you visit these places, is it every night?” Elodie brushed the remnants of the flowers from her lap, careful and deliberate with her movements. She didn’t care about the pieces on her clothes, but she needed something to keep her from wringing her gloved hands together more than anything.

“Most nights, yes.”

“Are you consciously doing it? Or is it not on purpose, you just end up in the fade and go from there?”

“It’s a little of both, I suppose,” he mused. “I control certain aspects of it, naturally, and I do purposefully sleep in areas that would present new situations or spirits rather vividly in the dreams. But there are portions of it where, when entered, I must just…” he tilted his head, “‘go from there’ as you said.”

“You always know you’re in the dream world?”

“I maintain a state of awareness, yes.”

“Even with things that deliberately try to trick you?” she whispered. “Like when you talk to spirits? How do you know they’re spirits?”

“There are things about it that require constant vigilance, and that is one good example. The fade is not a place for the absentminded. But usually spirits have a different feeling than people do. I’m sure you felt it when you were speaking with envy in your own mind, back in Therinfal Redoubt”

“Ah.”

She had, but it didn't explain what she kept seeing in her dreams even now.

“I explained the precautions I take, didn't I? In our last conversation, or am I mistaken?”

“Yes, you did. I’m not asking because I’m worried about you,” Elodie confessed, leaning her armored shoulder slightly into his. He allowed her to nudge him without flinching, and she sighed. “It just sounds like you have a better time in your dreams than the rest of us.”

She plucked a piece of stem she’d apparently missed when brushing off her knees and rolled the little shock of green into a ball between her thumb and forefinger.

“You seem…” Solas trailed off, as if he were unsure of how to phrase what he wanted to ask, as if he were surprised to have spoken so soon.

“Troubled?” Elodie supplied.

“I was going to say tired, actually. But yes, troubled also seems appropriate.” He frowned, turning his attention to where Boosifus was bending a sapling by pressing his antlers insistently into it. “Do you have anymore questions I can answer? Anything I can tell you that might help to alleviate said troubles?”

“No,” she lied. She knew he was watching her out of his peripheral, knew that he was waiting for her to continue even though he made no movement to show her so. It was just a feeling. Sera would classify it as very elfy, Elodie realized, and she grit her teeth against the intrusive thought. “There are, but I don’t know how to phrase them the right way to get the answers I’m looking for. I’m positive I’ll put my foot in my mouth.”

“You are Elvhen,” he said, a nonsequitur to what she’d just said, like he hadn’t been listening.

“Yes, I am,” she said through slightly clenched teeth. She fought back a visceral, gut reaction from having spent months with Sera. Instead of asking him why it mattered, she flicked the ball of green stem onto the ground and stepped on it as if it were a cinder.

“It might help just talking to someone else who can sense certain things. Certain things humans can’t.”

“Mmm,” she grunted noncommittally, hoping that conveyed that she didn’t like being analyzed so closely. Solas stopped prying, and they sat listening to the birds chirping and waking around them. After a moment, he inhaled slightly to ask her another question.

“Might I ask what your dreams normally consist of?”

“Why?”

She had bristled immediately, before she knew what happened. Solas, however, didn’t seem surprised. The fact that he seemed to expect it made Elodie regret the reaction all the more.

“I know we’re busy posturing as if we both don’t know why you’re out here before the dawn, sitting on a moss-covered log braiding bluebells into your hart’s antlers-”

Elodie clenched her fists at his accusation, even though his voice was soothing and warm. He continued, like he was choosing not to notice.

“However. I would be more able to be of some help if you were to admit what exactly is wrong. In your own words. Without me having to work so hard to elicit a response from you, _da’len_.”

The word struck her to her core, familiar and soothing. To talk to someone who could understand, maybe someone who understood too well… it could help. Who better to open up to than a dreamer, a fade-walker, of her own people?

Elodie paused, her hands gripping her knees tightly as she watched Boosifus grazing contentedly. He must have found a patch of fresh greens, his tiny grunts of happiness reaching them even from afar. She thought back to when Varric had first told her to talk to someone about what was going on. With each confession, dealing with the dreams  _ had _ gotten easier.

“ _Ir abelas, hahren_.”

“ _Ma i_ _sala hamin_ ,” he responded, his voice rough. “I understand. And I can help.”

“They’re delphinium, by the way. In my hart’s antlers,” Elodie said softly, glancing up at Solas as she tucked her bangs behind one ear. He turned to her, a glimmer of victory barely flitting over his features before it was gone again. “Not bluebells.”

“I know,” he replied.

* * *

 

They made their way separately back to camp, Elodie making some excuse about how she wanted to scout their southern perimeter before rejoining them. Solas was very hard to lie to, she’d discovered. She’d tried to keep the nature of her nightmares from him, but he’d drawn out every detail of the most recent ones with her father. She’d even described to him the pelts her father had folded, the way the light had hit her eyes, the pain she felt when she looked at the mark on her hand after such a dream. He’d soothed her with stories of such encounters he’d had himself, of strong and powerful memories imprinted with such certainty on a place that the dreamer would be overwhelmed with what felt like a portal into a past life.

“Your dreams sound rather interesting,” he’d said.

“Because you’re not the one who has to live through them,” she’d responded bitterly.

Now that they were both back around the tents, watching the scouts reporting back in, Elodie did have to admit that she felt better. His words, however cryptic and sometimes strange, were what she had needed. She could refocus on the moment because of them. Again, she told herself that this was real life, but it felt less like a mantra and more like a personal affirmation.

“Something different about you this morning,” Varric commented around a mouthful of sausage, looking over at Solas. Elodie was brushing Boosifus as Cassandra prepared her own mount, and both of the women shared a look of quiet wariness before continuing to listen in.

“How so, child of Stone?” Solas replied, packing up his bedroll and potions with quiet precision. Varric waved in Solas’ direction with the sharpened stick he’d used to impale his breakfast, almost flinging one of the sausages into the fire.

“You were smiling just now. To yourself. And without anybody having said anything for you to correct.” Varric snorted as Solas’ back straightened, his face a mask of indifference. “And you also don’t want to admit to it.” He bit into the other half of his sausage, chewing pensively for a moment. “Well?” Varric asked after swallowing, as if he’d expected the elf to fill the silence. “Who is she?”

“She who?”

“The one who you’re thinking about right now that forced your expression to melt from condescending to merely aloof.”

“I find it rather telling,” Solas replied, his voice tight, “that your mind automatically goes to romantic feelings as the root of personal pleasure.”

“You’re telling me yours doesn’t?”

“It does not.” The elf paused, and once again Elodie felt a mild pleasant crackling on the edge of her skin. Solas glanced up at the dwarf, and added, “Well, not always.”

“When you see someone grinning into their mug of beer after a conversation with a beautiful bard, what do you interpret that reaction as?” Varric pushed.

“Could be relief at finally having gotten her to stop singing that creepy song about a certain city elf in our employ.”

Varric barked a laugh.

“Touchee, Chuckles.”

“She means well,” Elodie said to Cassandra over their two saddles, mainly to distract herself from the idea that Solas could have been smiling based on the talk they’d had earlier.

The Seeker squinted at her now in the early morning light, and Elodie scrambled to look busier than she was.

“Who does, Herald?”

“Maryden,” Elodie clarified. She turned and realized all of her party members were looking at her. She readjusted the buckle on Boosifus’ saddle a second time, glaring at it and willing herself not to look suspicious. “She sings beautifully. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Never realized you were a musical sort, Herald.”

“I’m fond of singing and being sung to,” Elodie said, shrugging. “It’s pretty common in my clan.”

“Lullabies, or drinking songs?” Varric asked, and they began to lead their mounts away from camp as their scouts packed up behind them. Elodie swatted a dragonfly away from her hart’s neck.

“Both.”

“Which do you prefer, I mean.”

“Both,” she answered again, doing a piss-poor job of not looking suspicious. She could feel her ears warming, and so she blurted the first thing she could think of. “If you’re asking for a specific Maryden melody, for example, I’m particularly fond of her song Rise.”

“I don’t know if I remember that one,” Varric murmured.

“She sings it all the time,” Elodie insisted.

Varric shook his head.

"Drawin' a blank."

“Oh come on, you must know it, Varric.”

“He's in the tavern often enough to have most songs memorized, I’m sure,” Cassandra stated matter-of-factly as she drew her steed up before them. She hopped astride it, her armor glittering warmly even though most of the sky on the Storm Coast was covered in gray clouds. Elodie watched her leave, making a mental note to craft some of her own armor using a similar metal when they returned to Haven. Varric sighed deeply beside her.

“Nope. Can’t seem to think of it. You’ll just have to sing it for us.”

Elodie smiled, jumping atop of Boosifus and resisting the urge to look back at Solas as he followed them.

“In your dreams,” she smirked at the dwarf. She knew he didn’t take it personally, but he put a hand to his bare chest regardless.

“Low blow, Herald!”

“Maybe to you,” Solas said, and even without looking back Elodie could tell he had yet to mount his steed. He was still walking it alongside the dwarf, more involved in the morning conversation than he had been in any of their others, unless he had been asked to recount what he knew of the breach. Varric feigned offense but could hardly hold the expression before it crumbled into a cocky grin.

“Ah. Still, though, that answers one of my questions.”

Elodie snapped the reins on her hart to force him into a gallop, effectively making sure that neither the dwarf nor the elf could see her biting back a smile of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Elodie finding enrichment in her conversations with Solas that she really can't find elsewhere. I also miss the all-ladies party whenever I end up bringing other people along to wander ^^;
> 
> Back to Haven during the next chapter... back to the Commander, just in time for some rather big developments.
> 
> *quick & dirty Elvish, correct me if you're into the linguistics*  
> din’assan --> arrow of the dead/death arrow  
> da’len --> little one  
> ir abelas, hahren --> I'm sorry, elder  
> ma isala hamin --> you need rest


	5. Interruptions Abound

Before she realized it, Elodie was back in Haven. She had gained enough influence for nobles and potential allies across Thedas to take an interest in her, and her war council all agreed that now was the time to attempt to close the breach.

“But I’ve only just arrived,” she’d protested in a harsh whisper to Cassandra as they strode up to the war room. “Can’t I take a moment?”

“Are you injured?” the Seeker asked, turning to her with wide eyes, as if she should have known. Elodie waved it off, shaking her head.

“No, I just… it feels sudden.”

“It is sudden,” Cassandra agreed, her shoulders falling as she relaxed. “But now is the time. We must act and close the breach once and for all.”

* * *

Before Elodie could breathe, before she could settle, she was moving again. Varric and Solas hadn’t even unsaddled their horses in the time it took the war council to debrief and stab a knife into the Temple of Sacred Ashes on the map before them. Time seemed to spur itself forward, and after what felt like only a blink, Elodie found herself looking up into nothingness once more.

Too quickly she was pulling at the seams of the universe, too quickly did she feel the veil between her nerve endings, burning her and crackling at the synapses in her veins, too quickly did she tug hard and re-open every muscle memory of smaller rifts long closed. Demons raked at her vision, electricity made her curls click with static, and Elodie wanted to run. This hole in the sky was more than just something to close, she could see into it and feel herself falling. More than anything, however, that instinct to flee was what spurred her to hold out her hand and little by little wear away at the breach. She had never run from pain, or fear, or despair. She would not run now, even if it killed her.

Barriers coated her with light and twinkling protection as Vivienne and Solas struggled to keep her safe, Templars shouted at her back with their will pouring out and into her, but when Elodie looked up she could see no physical enemies. She felt them nearby, slinking forward, gaining on her even as the Templars readied themselves at her back with their swords gripped tightly in hand. When she looked around, there was nothing, just green smoke coating her lungs, green light piercing her eyes.

Still, Elodie held out her palm. Talons caught her hair, tugging hard, throwing her to the ground, but she rolled up and away, refocusing herself on the tear once more. She felt a yank at her core, pain, such a harsh ache that Elodie worried she might drown in it. Then relief, as if someone were whispering against her skin, their cool lips a light sensation of relief against a burn. Someone was shouting at her. Her father?

No. It was Solas, telling her now, do it now. She raised her hand higher, found purchase within the green light that cut into her retinas like a severed chandelier coming to crash down on her, and she pulled.

With a cry of agony, she screwed her eyes shut against the wreath of pain surrounding her and felt the knit take hold in the veil. It was closed. She had done it. Elodie felt a sob catch in her throat, a few hitching breaths barely filling her lungs as the ground rose to meet her, and then nothing.

* * *

She came to astride her steed, two strong arms locked on either side of her as she slumped over the saddle. With a tiny groan, Elodie tapped her limbs lightly and assessed the damage. Sore. Very sore.

“Are you finally awake?” Cassandra asked from just behind her. Elodie adjusted herself in the Seeker’s lap, lucidity crashing in around her like a welcome wave, and nodded. Cassandra made a tiny noise of relief behind her, the merest shake in her voice when she spoke once more. “Good. Because you’re a hero, your Worship. You have saved us all.”

Elodie contemplated pretending to faint, just to have an excuse to remain immobile and quiet, but instead she grit her teeth and leaned back onto her friend, holding her ribs where the ache from closing the breach still pulsed.

“I’m not feeling very heroic at the moment. If you let me go, I don’t think I have enough strength to stay sitting by myself,” she said in a low tone she knew the men marching beside her could not hear.

“I will not be letting go,” Cassandra said, a steely promise. “Rest for now. Sleep if you must. We will be back in Haven within the hour, and once there we will assess the extent of your… injuries.”

“You sound skeptical,” she replied.

“I am not.” Cassandra paused. “More like curious. Solas said he does not know why you reacted so strongly to the-” she cut herself off. “We’ll speak later. You deserve a moment of peace, after all you’ve given us.”

Elodie clenched her jaw hard against the pain and readjusted herself in the saddle, curling the fingers of her right hand in Boosifus’ hair to keep herself in the moment. It would pass, she repeated mentally. The pain would pass. She tried her best to hold herself as regally as possible with what felt like a cracked rib and the weight of Cassandra’s praise on her shoulders. When they rode into Haven, the pain was more subdued, and Elodie wondered if the feeling of wanting to flee would pass as well.

* * *

Cassandra held true to her word. They rode in together astride the great hart, past Haven’s gates, to a chorus of cheers. According to the crowds, the Herald of Andraste had saved Thedas. Soon after, celebrations were in order, and Elodie almost convinced herself that the townsfolk had known all along that they would be saved. Music broke out, as did dancing, and food that had been cooking most likely since she had set off to close the breach in the first place. It was as if relief had been dammed up, tentatively bound, and was now pouring out over everyone in one big rush.

Elodie watched them all from the stairs, her arms crossed over her still-sore ribs. She’d had Minaeve poke her a bit, with guidance from Adan, and they’d told her to take a potion for the bruising. Nothing had cracked, even if she insisted she’d felt it. Elodie wanted to tell them that she still had a nagging prodding inside her chest, and it must be a shard of bone to cut so deeply. But instead, she nodded. She thanked them, let them get back to drinking, and then moved to her current spot to watch as the night progressed.

“Herald,” came a call to her left. She turned, keeping her arm close by her side, and was met with a smile from the Commander. She returned it immediately, and when he held out his hand for her to shake, she chuckled.

“I don’t deserve all this,” she said, even as she grabbed it and shook firmly.

“A handshake is the least of the praise you’ll be getting tonight, I daresay,” Cullen said, looking out to the dancers as their hands fell away from one another. Elodie took her hand back and snorted into her glove. Cullen whirled. “What?”

“What other kind of praise will I be getting, pray tell?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I- Maker’s breath,” he murmured, clearing his throat as Elodie tried to bite back another giggle. “I only meant that the people are indebted to you, and they realize it. You’re owed more than just a cursory thank you. You deserve a standing ovation.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Elodie said, returning to her crossed arms and observations. “But I’m happy to watch them dance and consider it an ovation to us all, if you are?”

“They do seem to be enjoying themselves, don’t they?”

“Don’t you want to join them?” Elodie asked, tilting her head. “You’ve more than earned it.”

“Are you inviting me to dance?” Cullen asked warmly, his eyes flicking along her length. She drew herself up straighter without realizing, and winced at the movement. His brow furrowed, concern immediately replacing interest. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m a little sore.”

“Did you already-”

“Yes, Commander, I got looked at.” He straightened beside her, his mouth twisted to the side. She nudged him with her elbow. “I’ll have to ask you to dance some other time.”

“I would have been surprised you'd have the energy, to be honest,” Cullen said quietly, his gaze on the celebrating crowd below them. "Less surprised to see the Chargers enjoying themselves, though."

"No urge to join in on the festivities?"

"Not at present," he answered.

“Which is why I get to enjoy the pleasure of your company, I assume,” she chuckled darkly. She had seen the party cavorting below, and preferred it up here as well.

“You could still be down there with them, you know,” he said gently. “Even without any dancing.”

“I know. I just feel as if I can’t relax just yet, if that makes sense.”

“I understand. It’s prudent to question where to go from a large victory, and to be suspicious of it. We’ve got a lot of things to consider now, even with the breach closed.”

Instead of replying, Elodie nodded sadly. The feeling of unease was back, and she couldn’t seem to distract herself from it. It felt like looking up into the breach; it felt like falling.

Looking out into the crowd, she could see Seggrit trying unsuccessfully to impress a female Templar, and past that tragic scene she noticed Vivienne walking with Josephine. The enchanter caught her eye and gave a tiny wave, one that Elodie acknowledged with a nod. Glancing back up to the sky, she supposed she should feel grateful. She had survived with only a few minor bumps.

Then why, Maker, why did she feel so wrong?

“Elodie?”

“Hmm?”

Her name surprised her, made her throat constrict slightly, just enough to strangle any words she might’ve said in response. She hadn’t heard it in so long, not since the last time they’d talked. Cassandra had only indulged her in it when she was thrashing from the nightmares, everyone else she suggested it to either told her that she should settle for Herald as a sign or respect, or wait for a more natural nickname to come to mind.

She’d missed her name more than she realized, missed Cullen saying it more than she realized. She moved closer to him, but stopped herself short at the last second.

They were in front of everyone, Vivienne was watching. This meant that any visiting dignitaries that Josephine had failed to warn her about could be watching too. He’d warned her about this, about becoming more accustomed to thinking about what others thought. Much as she wanted to reach out to him, it would be inappropriate. She swayed, hesitating.

The Commander’s arm was out immediately, just at her elbow, keeping her steady as she regained her footing after stopping herself. He must have misinterpreted her faltering as an almost-faint. Elodie resisted an eyeroll at the thought of being seen as that fragile, and tried to focus instead on pretending as if his gloved hand didn’t affect her in any way. She stayed aloft without grabbing onto him, and it was her turn to stutter out an excuse as he dropped his hand and placed it on his hip.

“I’m sorry,” Elodie said, “I bruised myself up somehow during the…” she waved her hand at the scar in the sky, “and I haven’t been feeling right since.”

“So you said. Let me get you something to drink.”

“No, please,” she protested as he tried to turn back towards Adan’s shop. He glanced at her, giving her another once over. “I’m fine.”

“But you’re obviously not-”

“Cullen,” she gave a shaky laugh. “Did you expect me to walk out of there unharmed in the first place? Really?” He looked almost annoyed now, and when he opened his mouth to protest she held up her hand. He clenched his jaw shut and she reached out to pat his shoulder. “What would really make me feel better is if you’d just stay with me for a moment.”

“If you insist,” he said, and Elodie wondered haphazardly if he was choking back a comment on her stubbornness. He wore a similar expression as to when he’d snapped at Roderick all those weeks ago.

“How have you been holding up?” she asked, moving to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I… have been well,” he replied, his hand on the pommel of his sword and the other absently tapping his upper thigh. She bit her lip, wondering if he was going to take her stoicism as an insult, or if she should apologize and allow him to go and get her that drink if it made him feel better.

“Cu-”

“I wanted to apologize,” he interrupted her, his voice gruff.

“To… me?”

He looked over at her with guarded eyes, his jaw still tight.

“Why?” she asked, flipping mentally through the slights he could possibly think she was holding against him. There were none. She looked up at him in shock, therefore, fearing the worst.

Cullen sighed, frowning. The tension in his muscles seemed to ease, the fur about his shoulders drooping slightly as he exhaled, as if it were a sentient thing rather than a heavy lining on his cloak. He refused to look at her, she noticed, but at least he wasn’t grinding his teeth anymore. He looked resigned, like he’d given up trying to keep up pretenses. He straightened his posture, readying himself for her reaction.

“At the war table, before we rallied to close the breach, I didn’t give you a proper goodbye. I regret it. I was caught in my own mind, too nervous to see you again after…”

“After our last talk?”

“Yes,” he breathed, as if grateful she’d jumped in where he could not find the words.

Elodie felt frozen, watching him wide-eyed. She’d expected him to tell her that he didn’t feel it was within respectful boundaries to keep speaking to her so cavalierly. She had expected him to tell her that from now on, since the breach was taken care of, there was no need for them to carry on as if they had a future. She had expected an ending.

And instead, Cullen hit her with this sweet, misplaced remorse for a slight that she hadn’t even thought of as a slight. Elodie could barely wrap her mind around it, her eyes wide and unseeing as she tried to understand. Cullen continued, speaking in a clipped, self-accusatory tone, and she blinked back at him.

“I had wanted to say something to steel you, believe me, but when I saw you ride in after such a long time in the field, I simply didn’t have the words. The meeting, the decision, our immediate ride out to the Temple, it all happened so quickly. You looked strained enough already without me fumbling over myself in your presence... but that is no excuse. F-forgive me.”

Elodie watched him bring a gloved hand to his mouth, stopping himself from speaking further. He turned to where the breach had been, to where the temple had been, and to where now all that was left was a moonlit series of mountaintops; he rolled his shoulders back, and Elodie wondered for the second time if he had knots in the muscles that met at the base of his neck. This time, she wished she could reach out and draw them from his sinews, pulling at the hurt until it unraveled.

“How long have you thought about this apology?” she asked.

“I…” he paused, cutting himself off once more. “If it’s insufficient, allow me to amend it.”

The soldier in him was kicking in, forcing him to stand still at attention and wait while Elodie prepared a rebuke. She gave a weak laugh, because she had no criticism to offer him.

“There’s nothing to amend, just like there’s nothing to forgive, Cullen.” He didn’t look at her. “You, Josephine, and Leliana supporting me in the decision to act was worth all of the flowery speeches in the world,” Elodie replied. He made a huffing noise and she nudged his shoulder with hers. “I’m not just saying this to appease you, Commander. It’s the truth.”

“Then… good.” He sounded like he had more to say, but also as if he were second-guessing having brought it up in the first place.

“Did you ever come up with anything?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

“Well, I assume you had a lot of time to think, what with me having ridden off into the night and you not being the type to idly twiddle your thumbs while you waited for me to return.”

She glanced over, noticed how he drew himself up taller, the pink tinge on his cheeks definitely not from the chill in the air.

“So let’s hear what you came up with. Tell me your goodbye words.”

“You’re already back,” he said, his tone devoid of any inflection.

“It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t inspire me,” she joked. “You still owe me that lecture, after all.”

“You realize that I have a copious amount of reports that I should be working on at the moment, right?”

Her lips parted slightly in surprise at the curtness of his voice. Cullen still seemed rapt at attention, waiting for further orders from the Herald instead of further conversation from Elodie. Apparently she’d overestimated how close they were. She shut her mouth sharply and turned back to the festivities, biting back the immediate taste of regret at the back of her tongue.

“I see.”

“Therefore, your Worship,” Cullen continued, his boots crunching slightly in the snow as he repositioned himself to face her halfway, “you’ll have to settle for only hearing the shortest, least-flowery, least-lecture-like of the versions that I came up with.”

Elodie's mouth dropped open, but she shut it again before she could say something. Unsteady, she looked up at Cullen with as empty an expression as she could muster. He raised an eyebrow at her and a little smile pulled at his scar.

“At least until you beat me next at stone-skipping. I'm not so sure you didn't let me win last time, anyway.”

She caught on to his teasing completely then, and the smirk Cullen wore made her want to simultaneously punch him and laugh aloud. Unable to decide between the two, she settled for swatting weakly at him with a look of amused disbelief.

“I know, I know,” he comforted her in slightly exaggerated, smug empathy. That pushed her over the edge into frail little giggles, her ribs aching as she tried to breathe deeply. “It will be so hard for you to live without knowing the extent of my inner monologue.”

“Oh you think so, do you?”

“I do. But, knowing you, I’m sure you’ll find a way to interview me about it later. Preferably when I’m working with the new recruits or busy with paperwork for supply requisitions.”

“Preferably,” Elodie repeated. "Uh-huh."

“Yes. I cannot tell you how much I love being interrupted at my busiest,” he said impishly, turning his focus back on the crowd frolicking below them.

“Ser,” Elodie bit her lower lip and crossed her arms to quell her mirth. “You know it’s cruel to tease an injured woman.”

“What’s cruel is having to watch Seggrit blatantly ignoring Captain Rosalind’s disinterest.” Cullen grunted in pity. Elodie followed his gaze back out into the crowd and winced.

“I thought he was dancing with Minaeve?”

“Would that he were brave enough to just ask Rosalind to do the same.”

“Did he just… try to smell her hair?” Elodie gasped, horrified.

“I think he’s about to start nudging her with one of those mugs of ale he has in his hands.” Cullen gave a mirthless smile. “Better his hands are full, though, and not on her in any way.”

“Do you need to go down and defend her honor?” Elodie joked, part of her feeling a slight twinge of jealousy at the thought.

“Oh no, she’s a very capable woman,” Cullen said, his lip curling in an intimidating sneer. “I was more concerned about her breaking his fingers in half should he try anything physically. She’s only ignoring him because he isn’t a threat.” Cullen paused, then added, “Luckily for us, and for him, we weren’t the only ones watching.”

The Commander raised his chin at The Iron Bull, who had made eye contact with Cullen no more than a second earlier. Bull made a small gesture towards Rosalind with his right horn and Cullen nodded in answer, the merest inclination of his head. Had Elodie not been looking for it, she would have missed the exchange.

As Elodie watched, Bull and Krem moved immediately to Seggrit’s side, asking him something and allowing Rosalind a moment of peace. One could positively see Seggrit wither between the two men on either side of him. Rosalind made a well-timed escape to where a few other Templars were gathered on the opposite end of the dancing area, and Elodie chuckled darkly.

“He should have just talked to her. I’m sure with someone like that, respectful boldness would not go unappreciated.” She turned to Cullen, beaming. “At the very least, she could have turned him down sooner and more directly.”

“Maybe,” he replied. He brought up a hand to the back of his neck, ruffling his hair at the nape of his neck. “Out of curiosity, what do you mean by ‘someone like that’?”

“Oh. A soldier, I suppose.”

“I thought so,” he said.

“Is that wrong of me? To assume how she’d react based on her training?” Elodie asked, watching as Bull tried to get Seggrit to drink with him instead. The blonde was either considering it deeply or about to make a run for it, it was hard to tell from so far away.

“No, not necessarily,” Cullen mused, his tone making her forget almost entirely about the ache in her ribs. “Do you think all men and women in the military are the same, though?”

His voice was careful, strategic. If Elodie had only just met him, she would most likely think nothing of the shift in tone. He hadn’t used this tone with her since their first starlit talk, however, and it immediately conjured up the mental image of him wringing his hands before her with stars at his back.

“Are you really asking about everyone else, or do you want to know what I think of you specifically, Cullen?” she asked, hoping he would elaborate.

“I didn’t mention myself at all in this situation,” Cullen replied. He ignored her inquisitive eyebrow raise and pretended to become very invested in plucking a tiny piece of dust from the pommel of his sword.

“You seem to care a great deal about my opinion of soldiers.”

“One can’t be curious for no reason?” he reposted, and Elodie felt her heartbeat quicken.

“You’re not the type to wonder about something without cause,” she mused, her voice hopefully conveying equal playfulness and intensity. “You’re more the type to strategize and calibrate accordingly.”

“I’m also the type to ignore pretty Dalish girls who pry too much,” he said darkly. She tried not to let it show just how deeply the compliment hit her, and instead channeled the immediate surge of energy within herself into a quick scoff.

“So, you tease me about what you were going to say to me before I left, which you still haven’t told me by the way.”

She began to list her grievances, holding out her hand to count off points on her fingers. Cullen, his lips curved in a wry smirk, watched unfazed.

“You tease me about getting more than just a handshake tonight, and then take it back.”

To her satisfaction, he coughed as if she’d surprised him into literally swallowing any response he might have had. She grinned and added her final point.

“And now you tease me about our pleasant talks, which,” she pointed at him with the finger she was using to tick off the list, “I was looking forward to having tonight, by the way.”

Cullen's hair was tousled, as if he’d tried to tame it merely by running his fingers through it before deeming it done, and now a breeze pulled a few strands in front of his face. Paired with the open way he was gazing at her, it created a soft illusion of innocence. He was almost radiant in the night, what with the gold of his armor reflecting the torches to his left, and the gold of his eyes encapsulating tiny versions of the glow within. Elodie knew she should turn, knew for a fact that she was getting in too deep and it would be easier to stop right here.

But she could not bring herself to.

The tone of fake exasperation melted away as she sighed, and she felt her heart beat so strongly in her chest that she was convinced it had moved the leather of her coat. She shook her head, her hands falling to her side, and looked up at him with a raw eagerness she didn’t even bother to contain. Elodie took a step forward of her own, her leather silent as it slid through the snow, her toes almost touching the tips of the Commander's boots. Blinking up at him in the soft light, 

“What else will I be forced to endure from your lips before the night is over, Cullen?”

“Well, that’s,” he cleared his throat, lowering his voice a bit. His eyes were downcast, a little breath showing on the cold air, one too soft for Elodie to hear. His hand, the one at his sword, tightened reflexively. “That’s entirely-”

An alarm cut across the conversation, a bell that silenced the music and celebration below. Elodie and Cullen both flinched, dropping lower, their hands on their weapons without hesitation. Cullen moved first, vaulting down and sprinting to the gate.

“Commander!” Elodie shouted over the other, mounting screams, panic at the edge of her voice. But he could not hear her.

“Forces approaching! To arms!” Cullen called, falling in line with the Templars immediately at his side as he ran towards the trebuchets. Elodie turned to the mountain, heard voices and clamoring, and noticed the lights edging over the mountain face ever so slowly but surely. Her heart sank, and she knew that this was what she’d sensed.

It was not the end. It was just the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As my awesome friendo commented on the google doc when reading through this chapter "I love it when they get to have a chat before Corypheus attacks". Me too, sweet thing! Me too~
> 
> I bet you can guess what the next part will consist of, right? That's right. More heart-tugging.


	6. Trembling Palms

Winded and numb, Elodie watched as the mage named Dorian helped Chancellor Roderick back away from the Chantry door. People were moving about, crying, their voices miles away even though Elodie was right beside them. She could hear crashes, deep thundering shakes of the ground just outside, banging as timber fell and houses collapsed. She couldn’t bring herself to weep, even with Adan’s screams still reverberating somewhere in the back of her skull. She hadn’t been fast enough, could have gotten to him but just didn’t make it in time. The explosion had knocked her back too far, and then he had been beyond saving and Cassandra had pulled her away.

“Herald,” Cullen moved towards her, his eyes seeking and confused.

He had given her an attack plan before, had told her what to do, and she had done it. It should have been fine. It should have worked. The appearance of an Archdemon, however, had thrown them all into chaos. Seeing Cullen again now should have been a comfort, but it now barely registered in Elodie's mind. The screaming continued, a faint ringing as in the aftermath of an explosion backing the cacophony.

"Herald."

She felt as though the spreading cold within her could freeze whatever fire the beast tried to spit out at her. Her blood had congealed into ice, was as slush in her veins, sluggish and creeping in terror, slowing her reaction time. And before her, Cullen was still there, still talking, still waiting-

“Elodie!”

“What is it?” she asked, refocusing.

“Our position is not good. The Archdemon has taken back any time you might have bought us.” He paused, letting it sink in. “There has been no communication, no demands. Only advance after advance.”

The frost thickened in her chest, moving her gaze to the floor. She couldn’t look at him, not when he was hinting that-

Dorian was speaking. She heard her title, in reference to the Elder One. Had she heard right? The Elder One was only after Elodie herself?

“I’d give myself over, if it meant saving Haven,” she replied firmly. “No question.”

It was an easy choice when they were all going to die anyway, even though it frightened her to have to say it out loud. If her death was a constant variable, an inevitable future, Elodie wanted it to mean something. Cullen frowned, moving as if he were going to speak, but the mage at his side was too quick.

“As noble as that is, I don’t think it would matter,” Dorian riposted. “He doesn’t seem to be the negotiating type.” His mouth twisted downward, and he turned to Cullen. “The way you all fought back certainly won’t convince him to be merciful, and the final act with the avalanche cut down a good portion of his Venatori. If only trebuchets remained an option.”

“They are,” Cullen answered, an idea dawning even through his grim expression, “if we turn it on the mountain.”

“That would bury Haven,” Elodie protested.

“Herald, this is no longer survivable,” he said quietly.

She felt her mouth drop open, wanting to disagree, to tell him there was always an option for them if she could just think… but she had nothing to give him. The weight of his resignation, what it meant for them all, threatened to bury her before the snow outside could even reach them.

A thousand thoughts in an instant, freezing her in place. Would they die here in the Chantry? What would it feel like, to grow cold under rock and ice? What would her final thought be? Why was the room so cold already?

He must have seen her eyes racing as she struggled to make sense of the rapid influx of inner monologue. The Commander softened slightly, offering her his last advice.

“We can still decide how spitefully we end this. That, at least, we are in control of.”

“Well, that is unacceptable,” Dorian said, moving over to Cullen. “I didn’t race here only to have you drop rocks on my head.”

“Should we submit?” Cullen argued, tone hardening. “Let the Elder One kill us?”

“Dying,” Dorian said carefully, an eyebrow raised and a sneer barely contained, “is typically a last resort, not a first. For a Templar, you think like a blood mage.”

Cullen didn’t look down as Dorian touched his golden armor with an index finger, he merely tracked the mage’s eyes with his own.

“There is another way.” A faint voice, a protest through pain, to their right. They all turned as one. “A path. You wouldn’t know it was there unless you’ve made the summer pilgrimage,” Roderick bit out past his pain, “as I have.”

Dorian tilted his head, looking up to Elodie for advice, but she could only look back at Roderick and hope he explained further.

“The people can escape. She must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could,” Roderick stood with difficulty, “tell you.”

“What are you on about, Roderick?” Elodie asked, placing one hand flat on her stomach as she tried to remember to breathe deeply and slowly.

The Chancellor explained. He had walked on a whim, but he knew of a path leading away from Haven from here. From outside came an unholy screeching; it was faint in the distance, muffled by the Chantry stones, but it reminded Elodie that she didn’t have the luxury of weighing many options at this point.

Elodie felt herself warming, acclimating to the situation as the chancellor explained his idea. Her thoughts continued to slow as they began to converge into a focal point that could inspire her to act. The people of Haven would not perish here, even if she needed to sacrifice herself in order to make it happen. She could accept that more easily than everyone’s meaningless deaths under a pile of rubble, so she turned to her Commander.

“What about it, Cullen?” she asked. “Will it work?”

He looked at her with anxious clarity, his jaw clenched as he ran through the scenario in his head. He was weighing his options, trying to calculate two moves ahead of his opponent. His eyes brightened momentarily; there was hope.

“Possibly, if he shows us the path.” He shook his head, like he was missing some key piece in the puzzle, a piece that kept him from seeing the big picture. “But what of your escape?”

Elodie opened her mouth, but couldn't answer. Instead, she turned away from him, her brow furrowed with determination. They both knew how this would end without her having to vocalize it. There was too much between them left unsaid, so what was one more admission on that pile?

Instead of searching for false reassurances to offer the Commander, Elodie focused on the spreading thaw within herself, on the ice being chipped away from around her core. The numbness was receding now that she knew what she had to do. Andraste preserve her, she had known in some small reach of her mind from the moment she’d closed the breach that it would end with a bigger bang than what she’d seen. Part of her, the part of her that harbored the pain beneath her ribcage, had been dimly aware of her impending sacrifice. Elodie heard a creak of leather as Cullen turned heel and forced himself away with a snarl barely contained behind clenched teeth.

The sight of Cullen leaving threatened to destroy her resolve even as it bloomed in her chest, and Elodie turned her gaze to a torch instead. She stared into the licking heat, willing herself not to cry. Dorian exhaled slightly, as if he, too, had been waiting for her to say she would find a way to survive.

“Perhaps you _can_ surprise the Elder One,” the mage supplied, hope lacing his voice even as Cullen’s footsteps echoed in the great hall. Elodie nodded, then closed her eyes against another loud explosion in the distance.

“Inquisition,” Cullen addressed the recruits and villagers, his voice an inspiring light in the trembling dark. Elodie opened her eyes and looked up at him, at the imposing figure he cut in the shadows. She wished she could do as he said, wished he was addressing her. Cullen's nostrils flared as he shouted, his mouth drawn thin in a sneer. “Follow Chancellor Roderick through the Chantry, move!”

Dorian wrapped Roderick’s arm over his shoulders and led him forward. He gave Elodie one last look, a searching glance, and then he was leaving towards the back of the Chantry with Roderick in tow. Cullen strode back over to Elodie with his arm outstretched toward the door. She wanted to rush into his arms, to take one last moment to think of cool starlight.

But she stood still, back straight and eyes steady, waiting for Cullen's orders.

“They’ll load the trebuchets," he said firmly, pointing in the direction she needed to go. "After that, they'll make their way out to follow us. Keep the Elder One’s attention until we’re above the tree line. I’ll send you a signal.”

Elodie nodded once, wanting nothing more than to apologize. Her words caught, barbed in the back of her throat, and she knew that if she tried to tell Cullen how she'd missed him-

_how she was going to miss him_

-then she was not going to have enough strength to force herself to leave. Instead, she nodded at him and turned away.

For a millisecond, she thought Cullen was going to let her go. Elodie inhaled, a ragged gasp that sounded like the beginning of a sob, and forced herself to move. Before she could take more than one step, Cullen caught her elbow.

"Wait," he whispered, the word thick with regret.

"Don't, Cullen," she warned as she tried to wrench herself free of his grip, close to tears. "I can't-"

“Before," Cullen breathed, talking over her mumbled protests, "I never told you what I was going to say before you left to close the breach."

Elodie laughed, a sad burst of air that carried the threat of tears, as a fuzzy sense of disorientation slid from her temples down to her chest. She relaxed her arm in Cullen's hand and waited. His breaths were quick, too quick, and she knew they matched her own. Elodie looked up at his tone, aching at the way the words seemed to scratch at his throat. She had seen Cullen frown before. She had seen him angry, had seen him disquieted, had seen him defensive.

But Elodie had never seen Cullen heartbroken.

"I wanted to tell you,” he said, his words spilling forth in a blur, his voice soft and desperate. He stopped, paused, and tried again. “I wanted to tell you that you move with our prayers at your back and our hearts in your palm, Elodie Lavellan. Mine especially.”

She went to reply, but his grip shifted from her elbow to her wrist before she could say anything. As Elodie watched, frozen in place, Cullen brought her hand to his cheek and held it there. His expression grew fierce as he turned to press his lips into her palm. Elodie exhaled automatically. She wished he had taken her glove off, that he would have given her the sensation of skin on skin as a goodbye. Even so, as Cullen pulled away, her thumb instinctively traced along the white line of his scar. His lips parted, and for one holy moment Cullen's eyes fluttered closed as Elodie imagined how sweet it could have been.

A roar outside, shrill and horrific, and they both flinched. Cullen swallowed hard and let her hand fall away from his cheek.

“We haven’t got much time!”

She knew she should obey, that she should run, but something in her forced her to grab the cloth at his chest and keep him facing her. His expression was already relaxing, fading into the soldier's mask she assumed he embodied by default when under attack. Elodie held him still, and before he could protest, she yanked hard on the necklace she was wearing and tore it off.

It was simple, a leather-braided pendant she had made on her last trip to the Hinterlands. Its charm was a little glass circle, thick enough to be a ring but too big for any of her fingers, and she’d threaded it through with deepstalker leather leftovers so thin that she’d had to braid it thrice over to keep it from snapping. It was worth less than nothing, but she pressed it into Cullen’s hands.

“Keep this for me.”

“But-”

“Commander, this necklace is an extremely precious heirloom of my clan,” Elodie lied. She grit her teeth hard. “Keep it with you, and you can return it if- _when_ I come back to you. Understood?”

He paused, swallowed thickly, then nodded. She didn’t allow herself anymore time and turned heel to sprint for the Chantry doors.

“If we are to have a chance, if _you_ are to have a chance,” Cullen said, his voice sharp and broken at her back, “ _l_ _et that thing hear you_.”

Elodie tried not to allow hot tears to prick at the corner of her eyes. Would that be the last thing she heard from Cullen? Would she fall here? Her palm was too warm, a prayer of a kiss held in her fist as she clenched her hands and ran.

Neither of them said it, but that necklace was a memento. This was going to be most likely be her last stand, and even though Elodie was going to fight to live, even though she wanted to live more than anything... she wasn't going into this unrealistic. She wanted Cullen to have that worthless necklace so that he would remember her as a person instead of a martyr. She prayed that he would understand if he ever found out the truth of it.

With Cassandra, Solas, and Varric at her side, their party the same as it was when the hole in the sky first burst open, Elodie ran through the fiery remains of Haven. It was fitting, she thought, to have the same people with her at the end as were there at the beginning.

She shook her head and continued jogging forth towards the trebuchet, determined to prevent those words from ever entering her mind again. That kind of thinking reeked of the envy demon, a force she had overcome. She was stronger than that, more self-assured, and much, much louder than the voice in her head telling her she couldn’t survive this. She focused on her crackling palm beneath the halla leather and the hearts she held within it.

With determination clenched between her teeth, she ran harder. She would not fall here. She would not go down quietly. She would make sure that thing heard her.

* * *

Silence. Utter, all-encompassing silence. After such a deafening roar of snow, the quiet seemed to be what actually woke Elodie from her aching stupor. She sat up with difficulty, her groans echoing back to her from the surrounding walls of ice.

Her fall had knocked her already bruised ribs into broken territory, she was sure of it. Breathing came in shallow, unsteady gasps that clawed at her chest. She could see she was in some sort of cave, and she had enough strength to shakily raise herself to her knees as she tried to get a better look around. Gingerly, Elodie patted herself down, assessing her injuries in the dark. Probably a broken rib or two, judging from the pain, but nothing was preventing her from breathing properly. Her limbs were stinging with cold, but intact. Small blessings.

She felt her shoulder popping beneath her fingers, the knuckles on her right hand not responding well to her impulse to wiggle them. She must have fallen hard on her right side, barely rolled out of it. She’d probably popped a joint free and had it improperly fused back into place again as she fell. She was surprised she had it in her to move at all, though. For all her frustration and pain, she was alive.

Elodie glanced around, squinting in the darkness, and found her bow laying several feet away. Looking up, she tried to remember what had happened exactly. She… had gotten here, somehow, but wasn’t sure how long it had been since her fall.

She had buried Haven, yes, she remembered that part… but had the others gotten away? They’d been cut off by the Archdemon, and she had almost made it out with them. They must have seen her talking to the Elder One. Elodie retched at the memory of his leathery, inhuman hands at her wrist. She wished more than anything she could forget the look of white-hot disdain that had raged in his eyes as he told her the mark was permanent.

Pushing these thoughts from her mind, she stood on unsteady feet and forced herself to move. She was no good to anyone if she sat moaning about broken bones in a cave leading to Maker knows where, and she had no idea if this area was safe. Best to keep moving. She got up, driven mostly by stubborn force of will, and started putting one foot in front of the other on the only path out of the cave.

After a few minutes, she came upon a ledge down and drew her bow, scouting the area automatically. She was glad she’d trusted her instinct. Demons, four of them, slinking about and picking at some scraps of cloth she could only assume had been left behind by the fleeing citizens that had hopefully come before her. She didn’t have the strength to fight, though, she could barely raise her right arm with enough force to bring her bow forward. Maybe if she snuck past-

They caught wind of her when she slipped, her feet still unsure on the ice. Fear pounded adrenaline into her, seemingly slowing time to a standstill. She had faced an Archdemon and survived, only to be taken in by the likes of them? Demons she fought from the rifts, as mundane to her as plain porridge? How _dare_ they? The fear was replaced by righteous fury, and she brought her left hand up and stretched it out above them. She would _not_ die here by the likes of them!

A clap of thunder, an implosion of sorts, and a rift of her own creation burst into the world. Their energy sapped away from them second by second; the demons tried to move towards her but could not. She watched them disintegrate, listened to their dying screeches, and when the icy cavern was quiet once more, Elodie slid down to where only their ashes were left behind.

She looked down at her hand, flexing it beneath the leather. How had she done that? She was no mage.

_You are no mage…  and yet_.

Thinking of that phrase almost brought her to her knees. A wolf’s maw dripping black, a nightmare she dismissed as mere stress manifesting as people she knew, burned itself onto her mind’s eye momentarily. The image made her flinch backwards in pain before she remembered herself and remembered that it was not real. She recovered, drawing in deep breaths until her heart stopped threatening to burst forth from her broken chest.

Outside a wind howled icicles back into her veins, the ache of her skin momentarily outweighing the pain in her side. Elodie let loose a growl, keeping her voice down as the howls of wolves sounded in the distance, and pressed forward. She could see a campfire, its embers cold and long-dark. How long had it been since she’d fought and fallen? Hours? Days? Were the embers cold because its occupants had been cautious as they moved, or because they had been caught unawares? Elodie felt hungry and weak, but she had been those things even before everything had turned sour.

Her mind working, her teeth chattering, she set off with the wind at her back and tried to keep an eye out for any tracks signaling Haven’s people were nearby.

* * *

Elodie could feel her body beginning to fail her. It was slow at first, delayed because of the sheer survival instinct that carried her through ever increasing snowdrifts. Every time it had felt hopeless or she'd considered laying down for a rest, she’d find a sign that Haven had passed through. She’d found two campfires, the latest one still smoking slightly, and she’d seen trails of dropped objects like scarves the wind had ripped from people's necks. The evidence had spurred her on.

But there was no denying it. Her breaths came at more and more of a cost, her joints inflexible as each shiver sent immeasurable pain through her body. When she stumbled, which was happening more and more often as time dragged on, it took more energy to straighten up against the wind.

The snow had stopped falling in dense patches, and Elodie had no idea how long she’d been walking for… but finally she could see a valley up ahead. To her left up ahead on the top of a hill lay a campfire's doused embers, still barely warm but orange nonetheless. This was the best sign she’d gotten so far that she was on the right path. If she just pressed on past them, she could make it. And yet, she still felt exhaustion curling its talons across her throat despite her protests, ready to slash into her the moment she let her guard down.

She tried to think of warm things. Sweet, freshly baked bread. The fur on Boosifus’ neck. Sweet whiskey in a hot glass. Her father’s arms.

Bolstered, Elodie trudged forward, even as wracking shudders forced her to take smaller and smaller steps. Her feet slipped out from under her, constantly sliding on icy rocks she couldn’t see beneath the fresh powder. She fell to her knees once, snowflakes catching in wet puddles at the crook of her neck as she caught herself on her forearms.

Sleep. It would be so easy to sleep.

She got up, knowing her life depended on it, again too stubborn to allow herself to die for something so little as cold or sleep. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, Elodie pushed on.

When she finally crested the little hill past the freshly doused campfire remains, she could see orange and red glowing amidst the endless sea of white in the valley below. Voices carried across the empty expanse up to her, calls for the Herald, soft orders in the night drowned out by the blood rushing to her head as she felt the world tipping around her. She laughed in relief, and that sound took the last of her energy. She sank to her knees, and then fell to the side of her body that hadn’t been mangled in her fall.

Everything was so soft down here. Why hadn’t she given up and laid down sooner? The powder surrounding her didn’t feel as cold as it once did. Now, it felt like a plush bed welcoming her into its pillowy depths. She sighed, melting flakes trickling into her mouth and ears. If she'd had any energy left she would have shivered at the sensation.

“I see her!”

Shouting, shuffling, metal against metal, cries of relief and concern.

“Elodie,” a voice by her face, someone shoveling snow away from her cheeks, so many hands on her skin. “Elodie!”

“Did you hear me?” she bit out, her teeth chattering so hard that her tongue could barely form the shapes of vowels. She was seizing up, her muscles tensing to where she couldn’t move to cling to the person trying to lift her from the snow. She found that she didn’t have to.

Warmth suffused her as she was scooped to someone’s chest, the sweet smell of cloves and something more.

“Cullen,” she whispered, burying her face in the fur lining of his cloak. She wanted to sob, could feel her face twisting into an expression of pain, but crying required a deeper wealth of energy than she had. She could feel one of his palms at the back of her knees, Cullen's grip tugging her up against him with unforgiving roughness. Elodie heard him whisper something close to her temple.

“Shh. I’ve got you now. I've got you.”

She curled up tighter against him in a tiny ball, his arms cradling her like she weighed nothing. His gauntlet around her shoulder shielded her against the bite of the air, and she could feel that he’d pulled his cloak about her legs like a blanket. Whatever enchantment or rune that warmed Cullen's armor was imbuing her with its glow, or was that her imagination? Was she actually warm, or was she finally succumbing to the chill? Was this what it felt like to freeze to death?

“Stay awake,” Cullen growled, shaking her roughly, and Elodie heard more people joining in the fuss as haziness receded from her mind. “Stay with me!”

“With you,” she repeated, soft and fading. "Yes."

Everything went black for a while, black and warm and smelling of crushed violets and damp fur. A jostling. Someone was rocking her shoulders back and forth, pulling on her. She had no energy to fight back, no energy to do more than swim upwards against the darkness that threatened to drown her. There was yelling, begging, someone pinching at her ears, and then a rough voice putting an end to it all.

Then silence, merciful silence for a brief moment.

"Wake up," a voice brought her back. "Can you hear me, Herald?"

Elodie couldn't speak past her tongue, couldn't open her mouth past her chattering teeth. Her muscles were in spasms, her body in shock. She thought she recognized the voice. A woman? A friend...

“Is she alright? She's not answering me, is she alright?” Cassandra asked over her, and then there were more hands on Elodie, moving her around as if she were a plaything, wrapping her in blankets. “Maker, her ears…”

“She’ll be fine,” came Solas’ voice from nearby, and then there was warmth on either side of her head. Elodie opened her eyes with a start and saw him cupping her face, his hands vibrating with a melody of warmth.

It didn’t feel good, though; it stung like hundreds of needles pricking through the sensitive cartilage and folds. Her jaw ached just beneath her tongue, the cold having permeated the depth of her spine, and yet her ears felt like they were on fire. She thrashed away, trying to get Solas to let her go, but he hushed her with a soft breath of an apology.

" _Ir abelas._ "

“Stop! It hurts,  _hahren_ ,” she whimpered.

“I know. It will.”

She screwed her eyes tighter shut and grit her teeth against the tears that wanted to escape. She endured it because he was right. Any feeling was better than no feeling at all, right? Suffering meant she was alive, she told herself, right before she fell back into velvety darkness.

* * *

For once her dream was not a familiar nightmare. For once, she was dreaming of nothing. She was nowhere, surrounded by a warm void. There was a vague, crackling green at the edges of her vision when she opened her eyes, so she kept them closed. She got the sense of being in a large pool of calm water. Elodie felt herself floating, adrift on her back, with nothing else around her to make so much as a ripple. Her ears were immersed, everything sounding amplified and muffled at the same time.

A warm hand slid to the side of her neck, thumb at her pulse and fingers at her nape. It should have shocked her, but instead she moaned in surprised pleasure. Elodie closed her eyes and tilted her head back further in the water, allowing the hand at her neck easy access. Some dark, instinctive part of her mind willed it to continue its explorations, and even though her mouth parted no sound escaped her beyond an encouraging gasp. Aroused and helpless, she arched into its touch, warmth spiraling deep into her core as it paused over her pulse.

A flinch. Something was wrong. Elodie's eyes opened right as the hand slid completely around her throat and pushed her under the surface, holding her beneath the water as her frantic bubbles obscured who she’d allowed herself to drown for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I couldn't save them all."
> 
> *Shorter chapter means quicker update. I won't leave you hanging for long.*


	7. A Drastic Change

Not many of the mounts had made it safely out of Haven. In the aftermath, there were only a handful that had been released successfully before the stables had been reduced to embers. Maybe, in some way, it was easier to focus on that than the loss of the people. In a way, too, it was sadder. The people could have understood the call Cullen had put out, alerting them to arms, and they could have gotten themselves out- but the mounts would never have known.

Elodie tried not to dwell on the sadness of the situation, but as their party trudged across the mountains she couldn't help but think of her hart's warm fur under her fingers. Maybe Boosifus had escaped, like the others. Maybe he was free, now, roaming the Frostbacks with other harts. That thought helped distract her from the now almost-constant ache of her mark, and so she tried to hold onto those memories instead of the pain.

Ever since she'd channeled her power in the cave, Elodie had noticed that the mark felt more substantial. Just like in the beginning when she was nearing the breach she'd fallen from, the mark felt sharp and alive. She was suddenly aware of a new part of herself, something that ran so deep in her that Corypheus had not even been able to drag it from her palm. It would take getting used to, and the more she seemed to empty her mind, the more it seemed to pulse insistently in her palm. And so Elodie made her thoughts loud, observing everyone around her in an effort to keep the sadness at bay.

“Are you alright?” Cassandra had asked her the first day as their armor glimmered in the bright morning light.

“I will be,” Elodie had replied while nodding gravely. She'd prayed Cassandra would not pry further.

“Let me know if you need a moment alone,” the Seeker had said, her expression one of care. “Sometimes calm and quiet can heal us, especially when the world feels very loud.”

She had gone to leave, but had paused. Cassandra had tossed a miniature wooden fox statue into the snow beside where Elodie was sitting.

"Wha-"

“I found it in the dirt. It is cute and we should keep it.”

Before Elodie had had a chance to look up, Cassandra had already stomped away and left the little fox behind. Elodie had hesitated, then tucked it into her pocket where it now lay for her to fiddle with during the day.

It was the first trinket she collected after Haven.

She'd had time to think on her friend's words. Elodie knew that in Cassandra’s experience as a Seeker, meditation and calm must have had a huge place in her heart. Lucky for Elodie, there was no such thing. It seemed like after the impromptu singing led by Mother Giselle -and shockingly Leliana- everyone who followed across rocks and between pines was in an elevated, loud sort of mood. It was hard for Elodie to lose herself in unpleasant daydreams, hard to forget that she was their Herald when the recruits hummed hymns behind her. It was a fantastic distraction, if not a bit unnerving.

Once again, Elodie embodied contradictions. She had just barely scraped by the last incident by the skin of her teeth, and yet they exalted her. She had told Mother Giselle that fanaticism was the root of their problems… so was it hypocrisy to be relieved the mood was elevated? If she claimed to deserve any of it, no matter how welcome the distraction, how was she any better than the monster that claimed itself a god?

Elodie had no answers. She knew she would only relax when they reached the stronghold Solas had spoken of. For now, she tried to remember the way her hart’s antlers had glinted with mismatched bracelets and tokens and treasures, and she tried to keep smiling.

At the end of the third day of traveling, perhaps because of her attempts to distract herself, Elodie had figured out a few patterns among her traveling companions. She noticed that Blackwall would only walk among the new recruits, swapping stories with them to distract them. With his shield across his back, he clapped the youngest ones, the ones unsteady from the trauma of what had transpired, with a gruff hand on the shoulder. He kept them walking on. Every once in a while, his gaze would wander to the side, past the troops, towards the Antivan clad in gold, but only when he thought nobody would notice.

Josephine, to be fair, was very eye-catching in gold cloth against the bright white of the day. She could be found walking nearby with a few of the younger workers they'd had in and around the chantry. Seeing the diplomat without her signature tablet was strange, Elodie mused. Josephine seemed as if she didn't know what to do with her arms, so she was almost always offering to carry something. Elodie wondered if that tablet was a comfort, something to have between her and other people while Josephine worked.

Sera was ubiquitously in charge of morale, and even Elodie had to admit that Sera was intuitively aware of what people needed to cheer up. It helped that Elodie was also never on the receiving end of her pranks.

The first day, in the crisp light of the morning, Sera had filled Cullen's helmet with snow unbeknownst to the Commander. He'd dumped a pile of cold slush onto his curls, and Sera's laughter could be heard across the parade of troops as she hightailed it away. When Elodie had turned to look at Cullen’s response, he'd turned to chat with some of the veteran Templars about how he was lucky he’d gotten off so easy. A conversation was born, and Josephine had offered Cullen a handkerchief to dry his curls with, much to Leliana’s amusement.

Another time, when the Iron Bull had been napping, Sera had taken it upon herself to take pinecones and stab them onto the tips of his horns. Elodie was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Ben-Hassrath had allowed this to happen; he could not be so light of a sleeper that jostling his head around while trying to shove plants onto the tips wouldn't have woken him. But he had stayed asleep. When some of the children, merchant's daughters, had tapped on the Qunari to wake him up, his acting had been on point. For a second, Elodie had believed he really didn't know his horns were impaling underbrush.

Watching the whole situation with Varric and some of their apostate refugees by her side, Elodie had struggled to contain her giggles. The effect of the pinecones was ridiculous and endearing, and after Bull 'figured it out', the merchant's daughters were in fits. With a grin, he had threatened to vault Sera over the treetops so that she could gather more. Dorian, who trailed outside of the group and kept slightly to himself, seemed to hide a smirk at that. Varric had launched into a story, as he often did, and the day had grown lighter because of it.

Recently Elodie found herself near Dorian more often than not, and noticed that he, too, seemed to be immersed in his own thoughts. He had been with Chancellor Roderick when he'd died, but had also killed several Venatori just outside of camp before they met. She couldn't figure out if he was mourning, or plotting. His mustache hid a smirk most of the time, so Elodie suspected the latter. She liked him, though, almost despite herself.

He finally talked to her the third day over dinner, while Elodie was divvying out what felt like the last of her rations.

“Herald, is it?” he asked over the fire.

Elodie nodded, bringing a pinch of stale bread sopped in weak broth to her lips. Sucking her fingertips dry, she glanced across the embers. Varric sat to her right, trying not to look like he was suddenly listening in as he pretended to calibrate Bianca.

“So they tell me.”

“Oh? You don't feel in the very marrow of your Elvhen bones that you're the Chosen of Andraste?” he asked, his voice warm and yet still somehow sharp. He was hard to read, this one. Was he serious, or was he mocking her? Elodie set down her plate and brushed her hands off on her thighs.

“I'm not even the chosen of the Inquisition,” she joked. “Cassandra essentially just got stuck with me, and we went from there.”

“Your mark would most likely tell a different story,” he mused, and Varric glanced up at Elodie to gauge her response. Smoke shifted, obscuring the mage across from them, and Elodie took the chance to make eye contact with the dwarf at her side and crack a small smile. Varric relaxed immediately, going back to his ministrations on Bianca.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked Dorian when the smoke shifted once more. The mage tilted his head, looking intrigued.

“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't morbidly curious.”

“What’s morbid?” Cassandra asked, coming to sit between Elodie and Dorian. Elodie loosened her glove and wiggled an index finger along her palm to slide it off more easily.

“I'm showing Dorian my mark.”

“You are not a sideshow attraction,” Cassandra said, disapproval written in a tight lip and an eyebrow raise. “You do not have to comply with such requests.”

“I offered,” Elodie replied. “I don't mind. It feels good to have it see open air every once in a while too.”

“Is it like a wound?” Dorian asked, edging closer on his stool to where Elodie was pulling her fingers free of the halla leather. “A never-healing cut? A magical gash sealable only by the purest of virgin tears?”

Varric let out a guffaw that sounded like it surprised even him. Elodie snickered at Cassandra’s disgusted noise, noting the slight blush at the very crest of her cheeks. She turned to Dorian and shook her head at the silliness of his suggestions.

“Nothing so grotesque as all that.” Elodie held up her hand, showing the slight glow of the line slicing diagonally across her left palm. “You’ll be disappointed with how mundane it is, I think.” She turned her hand around, hoping he would be able to see that it  wasn't deep enough to show through the meager flesh and bone of her hand.

“Yes, you’re right. As far as marks from the Maker’s beloved, it’s rather piddly.”

“It's nothing to sneeze at when you get her up against a rift,” Varric said, chiming in over his newly polished sights. Elodie glanced at Cassandra to see if she would contest that, but the warrior was nodding with a serious expression. They were both leaning forward, engaging more with Dorian than with her. She smiled wanly at the man across the flames.

“It's as if her energy cancels out the energy of the rift,” Cassandra said, looking at the mage who had yet to see Elodie's mark in action. “It is truly an impressive sight to behold.”

“It’s not conscious, not really,” Elodie said softly, trying not to fold inward under the unexpected praise. It felt strange, like when Mother Giselle told her she was comparable with Andraste herself. To counteract the insecure thoughts that welled in response, Elodie straightened her back and furrowed her brow. She tried her best to hone in on the details of her companions' responses instead of focusing on her own.

“She raises her hand up, like so,” Varric said, demonstrating in a casual manner how Elodie would lift her palm to the rifts, “and whatever she does, it connects the rift to her and she does this motion,” he swiped, as if wiping it away, “and then it's closed.”

“You are overlooking the demons,” Cassandra stated mildly, pointing her hand at Dorian to get his attention as she corrected Varric. “Even demons stop in awe.”

“In pain, you mean,” Varric chuckled.

“It's more of a pull,” Elodie said, lifting her palm up unconsciously. There was a crackle, a tiny blip of green that could easily be explained away as a trick of the light, and she fully expected them all to flinch.

None of them did, not even Dorian. Instead, they seemed to take it in stride. If they were to have Elodie, they seemed to take everything that came along with her, including the weird energy at the end of her left arm. Elodie sat, frozen, amazed at the trust they had in her.

“A pull?” Dorian asked, waiting for her to finish.

“Like this,” she continued lamely, closing her fist and tugging backwards. “Like yanking a stray thread from a rug. Do it hard, quick, and it's more likely to snap and close everything off.”

“Fascinating,” Dorian breathed. Elodie beamed, unable to hide her relief at the positive attention. She knew Solas had told her that the humans would blame their people when they discovered the sphere was elvhen in origin, knew that he feared the worst for them both. But looking at the shemlen surrounding her now, Elodie marveled at the idea that any of them could hold a disloyal bone in their bodies.

“Does it hurt?” Varric asked. Elodie tilted her head and chewed on her lower lip. It was hard to describe, especially to an author.

“It’s not painful exactly,” she said carefully, flexing her left hand as she struggled to capture the feeling. “It's there, I'm very aware of it. When I use it, it's… like pressurized heat? I suppose? It stung like a day-old, deeply wedged splinter when I first got it. And sometimes, it felt like the splinter caught fire.”

“I remember the breach had a very strong effect on you,” Cassandra said quietly.

“It was horrible,” Elodie admitted. Every time a pulse had surged, she had wanted to gnaw off her own arm, it hurt that badly.

“Speaking of horrible,” Dorian said, his voice once again affecting a lilt of soft fondness that threw Elodie for a loop, “How are your ribs doing?”

“Ah,” Elodie gave a small laugh, tenderly bringing her hand to her side. They didn't have Adan, thanks to her hesitance, and so she had gone without taking any potions. She was bound and bandaged, but still tender and only taking bare minimum magical healing for the injuries she'd sustained. Mother Giselle and Dorian had both patched her up as best they could, but Elodie still felt raw and unsteady. Looking at the Tevinter mage before her, though, she still owed him her appreciation. She bowed her head a few centimeters and forced a smile. “They're fine, thanks to you.”

“Glad they seem to be staying in the right spots this go around,” Dorian said, adjusting a belt on his armor before standing. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go see if Cullen needs to be relieved.”

“Curly’s still at it?” Varric chuckled, his tone carrying a disbelief at the man’s stamina. “He's been insisting on taking the first two watches along with the troops the last two nights.”

"Does he get any rest?" Cassandra mumbled, as if she already knew the answer.

"I saw him nod off earlier, for a few minutes at least," Elodie said. Immediately, she regretted speaking up. Would her companions ask her why she'd been watching the Commander from afar?

"I did too," Varric chimed in. "How that man can sleep while standing upright is a mystery for the ages."

“Which is why I’m going to try to charm him into bed,” Dorian said. Cassandra made a disgusted noise, and the mage looked over at her with a wry grin. “Not like that. Probably.”

Elodie paused, her fingers only halfway in her glove again, and glanced up at Dorian as he brushed some snow off of his hip from where he’d been sitting.

“Has nobody stopped Cullen from doing double shifts on top of leading the men during the day?” Elodie frowned at the group around her. Cassandra's eyes narrowed, but before she could speak Varric reached out.

"You know Curly, Herald. If we've brought it up-"

"Which we have," Cassandra interrupted.

"-then he brushes us off. Tells us he knows his limits."

“So when is he sleeping?” Elodie asked. "Besides the little naps here and there?"

“I don't know that he is,” Dorian replied, his voice decidedly softer, as if he were sharing a secret with the campfire. “I know it might not mean much coming from me, seeing as I am essentially a dirty blood-letting fright in the eyes of the south,” the derision in his voice seemed to make his mustache twitch, or maybe that was just Elodie's imagination, or the shadow from the campfire, “but I feel like the mighty lion needs more than a cat nap at this point.”

“I agree. I'll go with you,” Elodie said, standing abruptly. A few of Leliana's agents came by to take her place on the log she had been using as a bench, and Elodie took the opportunity to move to Dorian's side.

“If you insist,” he said, eyeing her with mild suspicion.

"He might actually listen to the Herald," Cassandra said slowly, as if the idea had not occurred to her to have Elodie ask until now.

"It couldn't hurt," Varric agreed.

Dorian and Elodie turned and began to walk together towards the northernmost part of the camp. Wolves howled in the distance, far off and barely worth their attention at the moment. Dorian let her walk in silence, just like he did during the day, but just beyond the light of the camp he slowed his steps.

Elodie matched his pace, shuffling through the snow with smaller strides.

“Why are you not anxious around me?” Dorian inquired.

“What?” Elodie asked, surprised at the sudden demand.

“Oh. Perhaps I didn’t read the air correctly,” he teased. “Maybe instead of not being anxious around me, you’re actually just too exhausted to emote. Or to follow threads of conversation?” he asked, as if to check that she was okay with the jibbing.

“I follow you.” Elodie glanced over, smiling wryly. “I’m just not sure why you would even ask.”

“I feel as though you accepted me into your faithful fold rather graciously,” sarcasm detected, Elodie thought, “even though Tevinter mages are very rarely given such an opportunity.”

“The same usually goes for Dalish elves,” Elodie pointed out.

“Ha,” he blurted, his laugh round and confident. “So we're both outsiders that can’t be trusted?”

“So they say,” Elodie smirked.

“The enemy of my enemy and all that,” Dorian sighed. When Elodie looked over, he was failing at hiding a smile.

“Thank you again,” Elodie said, looking at her feet as they walked. "For the healing you did, but also for-"

“You don’t have to say that,” Dorian interrupted. He clenched his jaw, and Elodie wondered what he had sacrificed in order to get to them, to tell them about the attack. He'd leaned on Cullen at the gate, had almost collapsed even amidst his constant snark. She looked up at the stars, away from the magister, and nodded. In a gentler voice, he added, “You did more than what you needed to, for your cause and for your people. Do not feel you owe a bended knee to anyone… least of all me.”

“Are you sure about that?” Elodie chuckled, the sound a bit more bitter than she’d intended. “In some ways, I feel as if I’ve only succeeding in getting us more lost.”

“Oh you absolutely did,” Dorian replied, tilting his head with a more jovial tone. “But night is darkest before dawn, plenty of fish in the sea, all of those platitudes that make the speaker feel better than the listener.” Elodie beamed up at him, drawn to him even as she was frustrated with his flippancy. He smiled back briefly and added, “Now just get us out of this blighted slush and I’ll forgive you for all the walking I’m having to do.”

They wandered a few more feet in comfortable silence, almost to the border of their camp where the recruits were speaking as they finished their nighttime meal. Elodie was content until Dorian called out into the night and quickened his step ahead of her.

“Commander Cullen,” the magister cooed, his syrupy voice echoing out into the quiet frostbacks. “I thought I saw the sun rising in the evening, but it was just your perfectly coiffed curls reflecting the fire."

“Dorian,” came the reply from a group to their right. “Did Cassandra kick you out of the sparring ring again?”

“Oh you know me. I have a penchant for getting my arse handed to me by the blindingly faithful.” He tilted his head, positively glowing with arrogance. “Speaking of which, what are you doing later?”

“Hopefully finding time to sleep,” Cullen answered, setting his plate down. “Alone,” he clarified with such firmness that Elodie hid a chuckle behind her gloved hand.

Cullen stood from where he was sitting amidst three men and women, two of which were clad in Templar armor. He strode over to Dorian with an expression that Elodie couldn’t read in the firelight, but one that sent a thrum through her spine at the sight.

Confidence. Cullen radiated confidence.

She thought back to the last time she'd heard these two men talk together. It had been before she left to bury Haven. They had argued over the inevitability of their demise, and the tone of the conversation hadn't suggested that they would become fast friends.

But here they were. Elodie had only seen them separately, on opposite ends of the parade of survivors, but the way Cullen walked up and shook Dorian's extended hand seemed warm and familiar. The Commander glanced over, however, and at the sight of Elodie his expression completely changed.

It was small, but she paid attention to detail. Elodie felt as if she had looked into the breach, as if she were falling and weightless, and she wondered if her face showed it. Cullen looked at her and the self-satisfied smile vanished. His eyes widened slightly. The fur around his shoulders seemed to fluff as he straightened himself. In one millisecond his demeanor went from confident to guarded, and all she’d done was smile in relief at the sight of him. That was more of a look than they’d been able to share since he’d carried her out of the cold three days ago.

“Ah, Herald,” he said, his voice tight. “I didn't see you there, forgive me. How are you this evening?”

“Fine,” Elodie said, uncertain as to why the innocuous phrase seemed to snap her ribs anew. Had she… done something to upset him? Cullen nodded curtly, his eyes averted.

“And your injuries?”

“Extensive, but improving,” she tried to joke. He flicked a look her way, and Elodie wished that she could keep it. It was short-lived, his stare already focused back on the lines of the pine trees behind her. “How are you, Commander?” she asked, leaving off the ending she’d wanted to tack on.

_Haven’t heard much from you lately, but I see you trying to smile during the day._

“Fine,” he echoed. She frowned, searching his face for a clue as to what was going on. His expression was blank, distracted, and he seemed to deliberately not be meeting her gaze. “I've ah,” he cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve been meaning to meet with you at some point, to discuss some things.”

“Oh. Is it urgent?” Elodie said. She’d met with her other two advisors yesterday, had gotten some updates. There had been no mention of anything pressing besides continuing forward.

“No, it's... nothing. I don’t want it to worry you. If there’s no time, it’s of no consequence,” Cullen said, adjusting his cloak about his arms.

Elodie tried not to inhale. She didn’t want to be reminded of being curled up inside of that cloak only a few days prior, and she knew if the scent of floral clove hit her, she'd be lost. Instead, she pulled her mess of curls back into a makeshift ponytail and held it there with one hand, thinking.

“Well,” Elodie said carefully, “I would still like to meet with you. Tomorrow, you should come and walk with me. I’m at the front scouting ahead, most of the time.” She stopped herself again, wanting to ask him if he already knew that. If he had been deliberately avoiding her by staying further back.

_You just want to stay with the recruits. I’m sure that’s why we haven’t spoken, right?_

“I’ll see if I can make the arrangements,” he said, his hand moving to the pommel of his sword as he relaxed just slightly. He turned to Dorian to incline his head, then bowed to Elodie respectively. “Master Pavus, your Worship. If you'll excuse me, I have first watch.”

He left, and Elodie struggled to force her mouth to close. She didn't know when it had fallen open, hoped that it had been only after Cullen had turned on his heel and strode off along the perimeter towards a more far-off campfire that was in the process of being extinguished. Elodie drew her lip between her teeth as she stared after the man, all thoughts of ordering him to take a break having fled.

“Fatigue, I wonder?” Dorian murmured, and when Elodie turned to him he was standing with one hand at his mustache, supported by the other arm crossed over his waist. It was decidedly too prying an expression, and Elodie shrugged.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I feel as if I am once again the only outsider in the situation,” Dorian said, making no effort to move away. “Should I leave you to chase him down? Encourage you to talk things out with him?”

“No,” Elodie said a bit too quickly, holding up her hand to halt him. Not only would she not know what to say, but it seemed like talking with her was the last thing Cullen wanted. The thought alone of having to meet with her to discuss business as usual seemed to rattle him completely. She shook her head to clear it. “I was the one who intruded. Have a good night, Dorian.”

“You as well, Herald,” he replied.

With that, Elodie turned and left before Dorian could further analyze her stricken expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grief, guilt, and fear are powerful emotions to deal with. Adding any type of uncertainty in there is usually a recipe for trouble.


	8. Telir Somnial

After the rejection, or what felt like a rejection anyway, Elodie hadn't really known what to do with herself. Part of her had wanted to return to the light of the fire from before, but Cassandra and Varric had both overheard her intentions to go speak with Cullen. The snub felt like something she wanted to keep to herself until she could figure out what it meant. Had Cullen just been exhausted, as Dorian had suggested? Distracted from the journey? Did she remind him of something too raw to touch at the moment?

Did he miss her?

There were all these factors that prevented her from thinking things through the way she normally did. Not only was she tired, but she was second guessing herself more than she had since she fell from the breach. Everyone seemed exhausted to the point of breaking, and the Inquisition had lost a key focus while gaining a formidable foe. It was hard to convince herself it would be okay when they weren’t at Skyhold yet, when they weren’t able to sleep inside walls that weren’t made of cloth.

Well, everyone else was sleeping inside the tents, anyway. Elodie still found herself battling weariness and insomnia that drew deeper than the exhaustion from a day's march. The dreams had not stopped, even though their narrative had shifted.

Ever since she'd been healed after Haven, she'd wake up and feel water on either side of her. She kept seeing a glow of lilies beyond her reach, kept feeling a trail of warm fingertips across the sensitive part of her jugular. It appealed to her as much as it scared her, and she couldn’t figure out why. And now the person she had confided in about the dreams before, the person she’d explained the more embarrassing parts of the dreams to, was skittish around her.

Maybe more than skittish. Maybe Cullen regretted everything up until this point and just didn't know how to tell her so.

At the thought, Elodie struggled to swallow back an intense wave of anxious nausea. No, that kind of thinking was defeatist. Cullen wasn’t angry, he was tired, just like they all were. Best to ignore it, and best to not shove her foot even deeper into her mouth if at all possible tonight. And honestly, best to distance herself from confessing for a while so as not to burden Cullen further. That was the long and short of it.

These thoughts lay acidic in the back of her throat, hurting more with each swallow. Elodie, instead of returning to her tent, went and found a spot outside of the light of the waning fires to lay out under the stars. Even now, even as she tried not to note the absence of golden armor at her side, it brought her comfort.

Sighing, she settled and looked up above the unfamiliar treeline, doing her best not to dwell on the things threatening to crush her. She thought instead of the astrariums she'd found across the country so far, and raised her fingertips to trace lines in the sky above her between the brightest points she could see.

“Ah,” someone said, though not sounding surprised in the least. Elodie sat up, brushing snow from her curls, and turned to see Solas squinting at her in the darkness with a trace of a grin at the corner of his lips.

Elodie should have spoken, said something, but was still a bit slow. The elf seemed to pick up the slack for her.

“I always seem to interrupt you when you're at your most meditative, Herald.”

“Solas,” she breathed.

He inclined his head, acknowledging that yes, he was here. How perceptive, Elodie.

“Am I bothering you?” Elodie asked hurriedly.

“By merely sitting?” Solas looked away, a small smile of disbelief ghosting across his lips. “No. You were not.”

“Oh. Good.” She sighed. “I was afraid you’d leave.”

“And you don’t want that?”

“No. You're a very welcome distraction, if you stick around.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Not in an inappropriate way, I promise you. Not that you aren’t- I mean-” she exhaled, glancing down to slow her racing thoughts. She brought her eyes up to his when she felt steady again, and finished, “I feel at ease when you're around.”

“I find that hard to believe, what with the stuttering I’ve just witnessed.”

“Tonight is an exception,” Elodie sighed, shaking her head at the stars. Ridiculous. She was being ridiculous.

“I’m beginning to think my walks are ill-timed,” he replied, his gaze softening slightly. Elodie snorted in response. 

“Oh, they’re perfect for me,” Elodie said, standing and brushing her leathers free of snowflakes. “I love having you see me while I mull over difficult situations.” She gave an awkward chuckle, one she meant to be apologetic.

“As do I,” he stated. She stared at him, her movements frozen, and tried to search his expression for any hints of insincerity. He looked comfortable, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his mouth the same stern line it always was, but something about him felt warmer. Elodie sighed deeply without breaking eye contact, and he seemed to balk slightly at the gesture.

“I'm sorry.” She turned, crossing her arms over her chest. Solas didn’t need this from her. “I'm certain you didn't come out here to have to try to converse with someone only half-there.”

“I've had conversations with spirits who were fully realized before. Some were rather repetitive, hardly anything surprising about them. So in my opinion, talking with someone only half-there can be a blessing,” he teased. Elodie looked up, her turn to squint at him in the dark.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” she noted.

“I suppose I am. We're close to our journey's end,” Solas replied, “at least this leg of it.”

“Finally, something to be thankful for,” she agreed. “We’re almost at Skyhold?”

“We should reach it tomorrow morning, if we keep up our current pace.”

“I can’t wait,” she murmured, stretching.

“I came out here in hopes of bumping into you, incidentally,” he said.

“Did you wander around looking for me?”

“No, I knew you’d be somewhere in this general area.”

“Ah. Mage perks, I assume,” Elodie said, adopting a serious expression.

“I'm afraid such acute divination is not exactly in my repertoire,” Solas chuckled mirthlessly. “I merely happened to see you having dinner, but then you wandered off before I could come over myself. I had been speaking with Minaeve.”

“Oh,” she replied, confused. “What did you need from Minaeve?”

“It's not a matter of what _ I _ need,” he answered. “I was wondering how you were recovering.”

“Ah.” Elodie kicked down a tiny nub of snow that had built up on the edge of one of her footprints. He must have been sent on a mission. “Did you want a rundown of my physical condition, then?”

He blinked purposefully, and she realized her tone had been short. She didn’t normally react like this, and shame flushed the tips of her ears pink.

“I wouldn’t say no,” he answered.

Her flush deepened. She took a deep breath and let it out in a gust.

“My ribs are still sore, but I can laugh without cringing. My bruises are a gorgeous green and purple now, you should see them.” The statement felt too flippant, foreign on her tongue, but she pressed on and gestured to her head. “And my ears aren’t frostbitten... thanks to you.”

“You weren’t very happy with my healing of them, as I recall.”

“Well, it hurt,” she stated blandly. He narrowed his eyes. “But I appreciate it nonetheless.”

“When you passed out, I left the rest of your care to the Tevinter mage while I sought answers in the fade. I’m happy to see he treated you well.”

“Very well,” Elodie answered, recrossing her arms over her chest. “I…” she hesitated, closing her eyes against the memory of the archdemon. “Solas, back at Haven, I didn’t see you escape.”

“It must have been difficult,” Solas said, as if to reassure her. “To face your own mortality, alone.”

“It was but I thought…” she quieted that impulse and instead raised her eyes to his. “I haven’t spoken with you much about what happened before. Not since-”

“The singing, yes,” Solas supplied, as if hoping his attempt at levity would dissuade her from going further.

“I thought I was going to die without having saved you,” she pushed.

He searched her eyes, his gaze almost patient. She refused to look away, insistent that he hear this. She'd been carrying the guilt for days, looking at her companions after nights of drowning in her own personal darkness, and had not had the heart to speak until now. Solas, unlike the Commander, kept her gaze with an answering steadiness.

“That would have weighed on you,” he supplied. 

“It would have, yes,” Elodie breathed.

He nodded, and brought an index finger to his lips as he thought.

“I wonder how that kind of guilt would have manifested for you. Not to beat a macabre idea further into your mind,” he reached out to wave the hand that had rested on his lips, “but your sense of preservation for your teammates is unmatched. The idea that you wouldn’t have been allowed to know if you’d saved us… it makes one wonder about the ferocity with which you fought to survive afterwards.”

"It was my duty," Elodie whispered, her voice thick with regret.

Solas opened his mouth, shut it, let out a tiny breath, and finally tried again.

“I’m certain you’re not used to disasters of this magnitude. But neither are most of the companions you’ve chosen to surround yourself with.”

“I’m sorry-” Elodie started, but he cut her off with a look. She stilled, part of her wanting to scoff at him to see how he would punish her. The other part knew better than to speak up to a look like that.

“I’m trying to explain why I am absolutely rubbish at this whole… comforting business. If you would let me.”

Elodie laughed, then. She couldn’t help it. Her ribs clenched in answer, but she ignored it and slowed her breathing to a chuckle.

“I fail to see what’s so amusing,” Solas said blandly.

“I don’t know,” Elodie said, sighing away more nervous laughter. “I suppose the idea that you feel compelled to comfort me at all. You’ve already done so much for me, for everyone.”

“So am I succeeding?” he asked, smirking and narrowing his eyes.

“The intention is there,” she answered, her voice lowering to match his murmur. “That’s enough for me.”

“Good, because that’s all I have,” he said, shaking his head and smiling, as if he thought the entire conversation ludicrous, but like a small part of him was still happy to have had it. “It seems to me, Herald-”

“Elodie,” she corrected, praying that he would use it without qualms. Only a slight hesitation on his part, one that seemed to slow time momentarily. 

“It seems to me, Elodie-” he carried on as if the familiarity of it didn’t bother him. Elodie noticed, however, that his hands were clenched behind his back as he continued, “-that we’ve progressed from the physical assessment portion of my inquiry and into some emotional and mental space.”

Elodie exhaled a brief laugh, but Solas just knit his brow together.

“Is there anything else you wish to discuss while we’re on such heavy topics tonight?”

“You mean the dreams.”

“I do.”

She tried to relax her jaw; it hurt from gritting her teeth so hard.

“I haven't had any like the ones I described to you before, on the coast.”

“Have you had any at all?”

“I…”

Elodie thought to the sensual hands at her neck and flushed deeply. She had to turn away, otherwise she couldn’t trust herself to admit it aloud.

“Yes,” she mumbled.

Even though he made no move to question her, Elodie had the eerie sensation that Solas was able to discern her thoughts no matter what she tried to hide from him. Better she tell him than he glean it from her without her permission, she justified.

“They're complicated,” Elodie said softly. “They're pleasurable, but dangerous. I wake up and I can still feel them.”

Fingers at her throat, a palm sliding against her pulse, water warm on the sides of her face like healing hands caressing her blood back to where it belonged. She realized she’d placed a hand at her scarf and she jerked it down to her side, hoping he hadn’t noticed.

Solas seemed to tense at the gesture, and Elodie wondered if once again she had overstepped her boundaries. Had that been what made Cullen want to stop conversing with her? He had been the one to bring her hand back to his face as a goodbye, but she had been the one to nudge his shoulder, to step into his space when he stepped away-

“In my experience,” the apostate said, interrupting Elodie's spiraling thoughts, “pleasure and pain, beauty and danger, contentment and ache; these are all two sides to the same coin.”

“So the dreams are normal then?”

“I didn't say that,” Solas said, giving a tiny huff of a laugh at what Elodie assumed was her exasperated facial expression. She struggled to keep it neutral.

“I'm not a mage,” Elodie said, trying not to allow the frustration she felt to creep into her voice. “It's not like I can access the fade myself and gain insight into these mystical concepts.”

“You say that,” Solas said, that telltale curve pulling at the corner of his lips that clued Elodie in to the fact that he thought he knew more on the subject than she did. She sighed. He probably did. “But you might not even realize you’re there unless someone more practiced points it out to you.”

“I don't want to think about the implications of what the dreams could mean if they were actual visits into the fade.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted. “But it might help if I give you some tricks, just in case. There are reminders we can give ourselves while dreaming to keep us grounded in what is reality and what is a mere reflection of another reality. Simple things.”

“Such as?”

“Hmm.” He paused, then took Elodie's wrists in his hands, pulling them down and forward as if he were going to cuff her the way Cassandra had all those months ago. Rather than fight him, Elodie merely watched in wary curiosity. He held each wrist between his middle finger and thumb, and when he pulled away to open a pouch attached to his belt, Elodie realized he had been measuring them.

She held her hands still before her, her fingers clenched in loose fists, while Solas brought forth a small length of purple ribbon.

“What's that?”

“Magic,” he said, his voice not taking playful sarcasm as seamlessly as Dorian's did. Still, it was charming in its own right, a lilt all its own. Elodie snorted despite herself, and Solas looked up at her through his lashes with a feigned expression of admonishment. “Behave and I just might explain how it works.”

“No promises,” she smirked, something deep within her responding to the challenge in his stare. As if he could have predicted her response, Solas inclined his head in an appreciative nod.

“Basically, this is your tie to reality.” He looped a knot that Elodie was unfamiliar with as he bound the ribbon around her wrist, and she felt her lips tighten as she tried not to grin at the absurdity of the gesture. “In the waking world,” he explained, one hand holding hers to turn her wrist this way and that, as if to show off the craftsmanship of the ribbon itself, “you will see this as purple. But in the dream world, it will only ever show up as blue.”

“You're joking, surely.”

“I am not.”

Elodie inclined her head to the side to get a better look at the knot he'd tied without moving her wrist. The ribbon was very pretty. Its length was perfect. It left no tassels. Solas' fingers had tied the knot deftly, not once struggling against something so small. The thought of his hands working so easily made Elodie have to speak in order to distract herself from what felt like an impure path to stray down.

"Forgive me," she said. “But this sounds like something our hahren would tell us when we were little and scared of the dark, some sweet nothing to help us sleep at night.”

“Maybe it is just that,” Solas said, and suddenly Elodie was very aware that he had still not released her hand. She stilled, not wanting him to realize it either. “Or maybe it's a legitimate way for you to recognize that you are the one in control of your dreams.”

“But I do realize it,” Elodie shook her head, “and I still don't know how to change aspects of it. The nightmares, they're beyond my control.”

“Because you believe them to be.”

“Oh, and you’re telling me that they’re movies playing out that I can choose to observe or not, just depending on whether I’m aware of them or not.”

“Yes. Possibly.”

“Because you believe them to be,” she said with narrowed eyes.

“No, because I know them to be. Unlike you, I do not have to rely on belief when I have experience and observations, quantifiable evidence. I know it seems like dreams are subconscious manifestations of inner thoughts and-”

“That's because they are,” she insisted.  Solas shut his mouth, motioning for her to proceed, his face masked with an expression of annoyed forced patience. Elodie pressed on, “I'm telling you, these particular nightmares have a life of their own. If they didn’t, I would have beaten them down myself from the beginning.”

“Would you have? Have you always suffered from night terrors then?”

“No, but-”

She was aware of his fingertips on her wrist, tracing the groove between the two largest bones, finding her pulse.

“Have experience battling your own mind, outside of your run-in with the envy demon?”

“No.”

_ Don’t move. Please don’t move. _

Why did she feel frozen in such close proximity to this know-it-all who was in the midst of proving her wrong?

“No quantifiable evidence?” he asked, the killing blow, his voice low with certainty.

“Solas,” she warned, but wasn’t sure what she was warning against.

He smirked as if she had just proven his point, and she clenched her hands into fists reflexively. His fingertips jumped on her pulse, and she worried for a half second that he would drop her wrist.

He surprised her, however, by grabbing it harder and lifting it up between them.

“I'm asking you, da’len,” he said, sending Elodie’s pulse into dangerously fast territory with the term, “to just try it and see.”

A breath, a heartbeat, passed between them, and something in him changed. The joking, comfortable Solas receded back into the stony, observant expression he seemed to default to naturally.

“Or don’t,” he said, dropping her wrist. “But I assure you, Herald, that I only wish to help.”

Elodie panicked. Solas, just like Cullen, was reacting to her without her having done anything intentional. He, just like the Commander, was stepping backwards. She held her wrist where he had just had his fingers and nodded.

“I’ll try it,” she answered. She looked up, forcing determination and slight amusement to mask over her features. Better that than fear. “I trust you,” Elodie said.

Solas' jaw clenched at the statement, and he crossed his arms behind his back.

“Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we reach Skyhold, and we can discuss this more at length.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes sharp with what she hoped he could discern as sincerity. His mouth opened as if he were about to say more. But then he changed his mind, closed it, bowed, and left before they could speak further.

Once again, Elodie was left alone, but this time instead of wondering if she had said something wrong, she tried to figure out what Solas had needed such a beautiful ribbon for in the first place. Holding her wrist up to the light of the far-off fires, she noted that he had tied it on the wrist Sera had woven her bracelets onto, and act that felt like it had been ages ago.

Twisting her wrist to and fro, Elodie marveled that they could be so different, and yet so similar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Using tentative conjugations from DA Elvish translations, title roughly translates to: "Only Dreaming"***
> 
> I'm not one for unnecessary love triangles, even at the best of times, so I don't want anyone to assume that the tone from here on out will be stark competition. But I do know that in the past, when I've been questioning my desirability and was feeling starved for affection, even the smallest reach-out can feel real good. Even from someone I'm not necessarily compatible with. Especially if I can tell the person is attracted to me. It's just human (and elven apparently) nature sometimes.
> 
> Elodie's just looking for someone to come to her for once, instead of the other way around.
> 
> Also, the "Inception" thinking on Solas' part in this chapter was my way to play with blue and purple throughout the story... but I can see how it's quite obviously a token ^^; sorry haha, I could not resist


	9. Minor Bruising

The next morning everyone was awake with the early pink rays of the sun, as if they could feel the proximity of their destination twinkling just beyond the horizon. Or maybe that was just Elodie. She woke up in a cold-sweat, her heart pounding as if she’d had another nightmare, but her mind was mercifully devoid of any lingering images. Breathing deeply the cool air from just outside her tent, taking in the smell of burnt out lanterns and crackling meat, she stood up and peeled off her tunic to change over for the day.

“Herald, a moment of your time-”

Elodie covered herself with her discarded tunic just as Josephine pulled the door flap back to enter. The diplomat was looking down at a packet of envelopes in her hands, and didn’t seem to notice Elodie’s state of undress, but automatically Josephine pulled the cloth door closed behind her as she entered.

“I wanted to update you on a few letters I’ve- _oh!_ ”

“Good morning Josephine,” Elodie offered.

“I’m so sorry!”

“Oh don't worry. It’s nothing you haven’t-”

“Maker, how rude of me!”

“Josephine!” Elodie was holding her side, laughing quietly. The Antivan glanced back up, her cheeks bright red, and Elodie waved a hand in front of her as if to banish her doubts. “It’s seriously okay. It’s not like you didn’t help patch me up before, right? It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“It’s different, though, bursting in on you like this,” Josephine bit her lip, and Elodie felt herself relax further.

“It’s not bursting in if you’re always welcome,” Elodie said, walking over to where the layers of her nevarrite armor lay glimmering purple in the low light. Josephine gave a small gasp, and it sounded like the noise surprised even her. Elodie glanced up, frowning. “What?”

“Your…” Josephine gestured to her, and Elodie held up the rare metal.

“What, this? I got it at the Black Emporium. It’s pretty, right?”

“Herald, I meant your ribs.”

“Ah. What about them?” Elodie lifted her arm and glanced down at the bruising that still glowered up from her abdomen. Most of the pain had subsided, but the stiffness and discoloration were still there. She needed a few good rounds in the ring, with someone going easy on her, to loosen the muscles and she’d be fine. Josephine stepped forward as Elodie examined herself, and she reached out as if to touch Elodie’s side as well.

“I… I knew you were injured during the fall, and of course I discreetly helped Leliana and Mother Giselle change you over,” Josephine mumbled, drawing her hand back. “But I never saw the extent for myself.” Her eyes looked shimmery, as if she were trying not to cry.

“Please don’t be upset,” Elodie said softly, pulling a cropped cotton shirt over her head so that the bruises were more artfully hidden. “This isn’t even as bad as it was.”

“You’re joking!” Josephine gave a laugh out of surprise, forcing a very pretty smile back onto her face. She sniffed once, the only indication that confirmed with Elodie that she was upset. “Well. I assume you know your own limits. But I’m here if you ever require anything.”

“Anything?”

Josephine nodded emphatically, one hand poised up at her shoulder. If she’d had her tablet, her quill would’ve been at the ready. Without it, she rubbed her thumb absently over the knuckle of her middle finger. Elodie was willing to bet it was calloused from all the writing she did, based on the way she fiddled with it.

“Now that you mention it, if you could send a letter to Val Royeaux whenever there’s some time, that’d be excellent. I’ve heard they’ve got an impeccable massage parlor within their finer shopping district,” Elodie smiled. Josephine moved to make a note of it, scanning the room for a spare quill and pot.  Elodie stopped her, reaching out to grip her advisor’s hand gently. Josephine flushed once more, her polite grin widening into a more genuine expression of comfort. “Now,” Elodie said, pulling on her long-sleeved tunic. “What was it you needed?”

“Oh. I’ve ah,” Josephine looked down at her letters, looking like she was in the process of finding the right words. She straightened and brought her eyes back to Elodie’s. “It’s nothing,” she said, smiling. “It can wait.”

“Can it really?” Elodie prodded.

“Yes. These letters from some ravens Leliana sent, they're just... standard correspondence. But I have good news! The scouts up ahead sent news of the structure Solas described to you.”

“Skyhold.”

Josephine nodded, her eyes bright.

“Let’s talk about that instead. What is the first thing you’ll want to do when we arrive?”

“If possible, I’d love a bath,” she confessed immediately. “But first,” Elodie shook her head, sweaty tendrils of curls falling in front of her face. “I have to endure another day in this armor.”

“I agree that a change of clothes will be nice when we finally arrive,” the Antivan said, her voice small. “Here. Let me get your arms for you. It has to be a pain to do this alone every day.”

“You get used to it after a while,” Elodie said, but allowed Josephine to fuss over her.

She was dressed in half the time it usually took her, with Josephine’s careful hands tying and buckling alongside of her own. She had to admit, she was grateful. For some reason, without any images from the previous night’s bad dream to cast tangible shadows, Elodie still found her fingers trembling and her wrists weak. Luckily for her, Josephine was a pleasant distraction, and she filled the tent with pleasant light conversation as they worked.

“Baelam’s daughters spent the entire afternoon yesterday making those snowmen,” Josephine tutted, nearing the end of her story as she gently pulled buckles closed on the back of Elodie’s boots. “And then Sera used them for target practice before the sun had even set.”

"I was wondering where she got off to before dinner."

"It was grotesque. I mean, granted I understand they were just snowmen, but still."

“Be grateful our roguish friend didn’t turn her pranks on us instead,” Elodie chuckled, earning her a playful pat on her calf by Josephine’s hand.

“You know what’s the worst part? The littlest one seemed to actually like the snowman _more_ with the arrows sticking out of its head,” Josephine said, shaking her head as she got up and sat on Elodie’s bed, watching the elf looping her belt around her waist over her coat. When Elodie cinched it tight and gave a low groan of pain, Josephine had to look away.

“Is that the tiny redhead I see running around?” Elodie asked, looking to distract her friend from her worries.

“Yes. Baelem’s youngest, Kannara.”

“I like that one,” Elodie said, recalling a time when she’d seen the girl swiping sweet buns from just outside the tavern back in Haven. She wondered who the girl had learned such behavior from.

“What were you like as a child?” Josephine asked. She paused, then blurted, “If it’s not rude of me to ask.”

“Not at all,” Elodie smiled. “I was kind of like Kannara, I guess. I liked breaking things just to fix them, and being able to roam freely. It’s why my Keeper, Deshanna, urged me to be a hunter. Originally, I was going to be a healer like my father.”

"Did you like healing?"

"No," Elodie laughed. "I seemed to always do the opposite."

“Ah. So hunting was better, then?”

“It was less delicate than healing, so yes. I treated hunting like a puzzle, so it helped fill the same void as taking things apart just to see how they worked,” Elodie replied impishly. “As I got older, I also liked collecting things to make little trinkets.”

“What kind of things would you collect?” Josephine asked, eager and sweet.

“Anything and everything, you name it. When I was really little and my father first got sick, my clan moved around the beach near Jader. I collected a ton of weird items from traders in the area.”

“I did not know your clan lived anywhere but the Free Marches.”

“We moved to roam up near Wycome when I was about sixteen. I still found things to collect,” Elodie bit her lip. “Although I have to confess, I much preferred the junk I found near the outskirts of Orlais.”

“Do not keep me in suspense, what are some examples?”

“Oh, they were trivial things,” Elodie said, fiddling with a buckle as she drew the items from her memory. “Old perfume sample bottles of all shapes and colors, no bigger than your pinky; used quills with decorative plumage; colored beads that fell from unused fabrics too flimsy for dressmaking; those kinds of things, the ones a normal person should throw away. They served no purpose.”

“I bet they were lovely,” Josephine sighed.

“They kind of were,” Elodie conceded. “Lovely but useless.” She laughed a bit, remembering something else. “When I was older, but not by much, I started trying to make jewelry. Trinkets. Mainly for my dad and my best friend at the time. I’d spend hours arguing with the merchants, trying to get them to trade my junk for things like silver thread or sparkling glue.”

“And?”

“My clan was the sparkliest, gaudiest Dalish clan for about two years, until my obsession died back down to normal levels,” Elodie laughed. “My father kept this one necklace I made him, from one of the old perfume bottles.”

Josephine laughed, nodding.

“It was just nevarrite flakes suspended in dyed water, stoppered in a tiny pink sample bottle I found in one of the fountains outside of Jader,” Elodie said, her voice growing soft. “My clan had just crossed the Waking Sea in search of medicine. We’d been in the Planasene Forest for longer than expected, and my father had suggested he and I catch a boat together. The city, even though it was a small one, looked so big after seeing nothing but trees.”

“What was the medicine for? I was under the impression Dalish clans usually foraged for most of their necessary goods.”

“We did- I mean, we do, but my father…” she cleared her throat a bit. “He was sick. And he knew that some shemlen medicine couldn’t hurt.” Before Josephine could sense the soreness in her voice, Elodie added, “We had a lot of time on the boat back afterwards, so I crafted something for him to kill a few hours. There was only so much of my jumping around that the others on the ship would tolerate. I’d told him it was my spirit inside it, because as a ten year old who’s prone to being dramatic, it’s what you do, right?”

“Did he like it?” Josephine whispered, enraptured.

Elodie smiled, her eyes clouding over with nostalgia.

“He treasured that pendant as if it were a lifeward amulet.”

The memory of it hanging around her father’s neck stung a bit. Elodie hadn’t conjured up that image in years. In fact, it seemed to be something she had blocked resolutely from her mind until this very moment. Her hand fluttered at her collarbone, as if she still had the matching one she’d made for herself, as if she hadn’t thrown it away years ago into the sea.

Elodie realized she’d drifted off into silence, and Josephine was sensible enough to recognize that she needed a minute. Elodie opened her mouth to change the subject, but was interrupted for the second time that morning.

“Herald,” a muffled male voice outside her tent called, and both women stood at attention.

“Come in,” Elodie replied.

Without a word, Cullen stepped forward, dipping to slip past the fold of the tent flap. He looked brighter somehow, even with the dark circles underneath of his eyes. He was positively glowing, and it wasn’t just a trick of the light from the rising sun beyond him. Unlike the other night, his gaze caught Elodie's and stayed fixed there.

“Good morning."

Well. This was a bit confusing. Elodie blinked, unable to keep her heart from beating faster at his greeting. She tried to keep her voice civil, still stinging from the discomfort Cullen had shown her last night. She didn't want to overstep further if she could help it.

"Good morning, Commander," she said simply. Cullen didn't seem to notice her cool tone, because his eyes crinkled at the corners as a ghost of a smile flitted across his features.

"I’m glad to see you’re awake and dressed. I just heard from Leliana’s scouts,” he said, beaming. “We’ve only just a day’s walk to the fortress. I wanted to tell you myself, as soon as I heard.”

“That is good news,” Elodie said, smiling back at him. Cullen stepped forward, radiating the confidence he'd lacked last night. He looked as if he were going to say more, but did not get the chance. Josephine cleared her throat and Elodie could see the suppression of a flinch in the way that his eyes immediately darted over to where the diplomat was standing.

His eagerness subdued itself just slightly, even while his expression remained open and energetic. Elodie couldn’t place why he was so different today, as opposed to last night. Maybe he’d gotten some sleep after all.

"I'm sorry," Josephine said, one hand lifting to her mouth, "I thought you had seen me. Did I startle you?"

“N-no, not at all. Forgive me,” Cullen stammered, “I never meant to intrude.”

“You’re not,” Josephine replied, smiling down at the pile of letters she was reshuffling back into her hands. “I was just helping her Worship with her mail and her… well, mail,” Josephine said, gesturing to Elodie’s armor. “Now that she’s well-buckled, I’ll be on my way.”

“We’ll speak again once we get to Skyhold,” Elodie promised Josephine as she hurried off. Cullen straightened his shoulders as Josephine breezed past, and once the tent flap closed behind her he seemed to regain his ability to speak freely.

“You needed help getting dressed?”

Elodie's eyebrow quirked at his tone.

“Not particularly, although it was much faster with Josephine around.”

“Do you need potions or-”

“No, I’m fine. If I'd had my way, I would’ve dressed alone, but Josephine insisted on helping after she saw my bruises.” Elodie shrugged. “It was nice, but not necessary.”

“Do your injuries look that bad?” he asked, his voice softer now.

“To someone who doesn’t see many injuries, I suppose,” she retorted, narrowing her eyes, wondering what he was getting at.

“Last night you said you’d been healing well,” Cullen said, and Elodie got the distinct impression he was being accusatory, even as his tone remained gentle and concerned.

“You remember what I said last night?” she snapped before she could stop herself. He frowned, confused. She drew in her lower lip, gnawing it gently, and then tried to amend her rebuke. “You seemed distracted, as if you couldn't get away soon enough. I was wondering if my words had slipped your mind.”

“I beg your pardon? Even if I am distracted,” he protested, his voice growing ragged for just an instant, “I remember our conversations.”

She swallowed, getting a sense that they weren’t speaking only of last night any longer. She moved to speak further, but he cut her off unintentionally.

“Back to the subject at hand, as you well know, I've seen my fair share of combat. Thanks to this, I know a thing or two about injuries sustained in battle. And therefore, with all due respect, I must insist that you rest more often when and if you can. You do no justice to Haven or its people by pushing yourself past your limit, and you should endeavor to remember that.”

Caught off guard by his remark, Elodie couldn’t form a retort quick enough. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as if he were daring her to disagree, and she felt a distinctive thump in her chest at the sight. It mimicked the way he had looked at Roderick down the bridge of his nose, back when the chancellor had been snapping at the Commander about the Chantry. Elodie found herself reveling in that gaze at the same time as she felt the urge to shove Cullen off balance. What had he said before, when they’d spoken of that interaction at the lake? Of how Cullen had merely sneered at Roderick instead of unleashing a retort?

_Did I really seem that calm?_

“I know my body better than anyone else does, Commander,” Elodie said, squinting right back at him, trying to discern if this calm was a deliberate wall or not. Cullen opened his mouth to say something further, but she held up a hand and added gently, “You and I have both seen worse, trust me.”

When he shut his mouth, she lowered her palm to pat the fur of his mantle in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Her fingers traced a little arc, brushing the red and black fur back over his pauldron. Cullen flinched, surprise tinting his face as his arms fell away from his chest and his hands began to fidget. He adjusted his gloves, flexing his fingers as he turned his face away from hers, and drew in his upper lip between his teeth.

"I do," he said softly, two words that he seemed like he hadn't meant to let escape.

Elodie’s eyes widened. Such a tiny touch, and it had that effect on him? She tried to slow her breathing, and she searched his features to try to get a better reading of his true feelings. Instinctively, Elodie withdrew her hand, guilt spreading through her like frost on a windowpane. He must want to distance himself from her. And here she was not letting him do just that.

Elodie stood there, confused and full of impotent longing.

“A-all the same," Cullen stammered. "Let me know if you need any assistance.”

He inclined his head slightly in a reverent bow to her, looking much like he had last night: distracted, guarded, insecure. Before she could stop herself, Elodie exhaled a confused puff of air, causing him to furrow his brow at her.

“Cullen,” Elodie blurted, eager and anxious. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem… different.” He looked confused, and she forced herself to clarify in a shaky voice that betrayed her nerves, “With me, I mean. Since Haven, and then…” she stopped, shaking her head, too much to talk about too soon.

“Have I said something out of line?" he asked, his expression one of distress.

"No, no, it's not that," Elodie ran a hand through her curls, searching for how to phrase it. "You're just... things aren't how they were anymore."

Great. Very clear. She grimaced, closing her eyes so that she didn't have to see his reaction.

"But I haven’t meant to-” he paused, running his hand through his hair, mirroring her gesture, as he took a step back from her. Elodie opened her eyes and watched him seem to flick through their most recent interactions in a quick mental assessment. Realization seemed to dawn on him, his eyes closing briefly. “Maker’s breath.”

She kept her gaze on his, imploring him to tell her she was wrong, that she was reading too much into his gruffness from before. He looked ill, and still would not speak. The confidence from before was gone, the eagerness about Skyhold had vanished like smoke, and Elodie knew it was all her fault. She wished more than anything that she could start this conversation over, choose a new pathway, one that didn't end with Cullen looking at her in this disquieted, penitent way.

“Is there something I can do?” she pleaded.

“Something _you_ can do?” Cullen repeated, incredulity seemingly freezing him in place. Elodie watched as he regarded her with wide-eyed shock, and she nodded helplessly. He brought his hands down to the pommel of his sword again, and she could see a muscle in his jaw clench.

“I feel like I’ve somehow put distance between us,” she said, wishing she knew better how to phrase delicate matters such as this. "But I can fix it, given the chance."

Maker, she hated how desperate she sounded, and she hated even more that Cullen looked as if he couldn't believe he were having such a conversation.

“You think this is because of you, or something you did?” he asked softly.

“Of course. I mean... it has to be, right?” she muttered, a bit more petulantly than she’d intended. Finally, with what felt like the last ounce of pluck she had stored in reserve, Elodie said, "I can't reach you like this."

She realized she was staring at Cullen’s fur mantle only when he opened his mouth to speak. She brought her gaze back up to his automatically, hoping she hadn’t offended him with her assumptions and hoping that the next words out of his mouth refuted the guilt she was wrestling.

“I’m…” he paused, hesitating, and looked back at her with doleful eyes. She fought the urge to reach up and ruffle the curls he had so carefully swept away from his face, and instead waited for him to finish his thought. Cullen exhaled, as if giving up, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Elodie.”

“Wh-what for?” she stammered, caught off guard.

"The distance."

He was glancing off to the side, unable to meet her gaze, one hand drawing a line across the nape of his neck with the roughened leather of his glove. Elodie swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from speaking but finding that she couldn't resist opening up to Cullen like she always did.

"If you need time away from me, away from everything we-" Elodie started to say, but it seemed this was a morning cobbled together out of interruptions upon interruptions.

"Commander!" a scout outside her tent called.

Cullen hesitated, and neither of them could find their voices. In another heartbeat, he bowed to Elodie and ducked out of her tent completely. Elodie watched the empty space where he had just been standing, as if she expected him to apparate back into her tent and clarify things for her if she just stared long enough… but he did not.

The conversation had solved nothing, and she knew nothing more than the fact that Skyhold was on the horizon. Had that been what he had wanted to speak with her about? What he'd hinted that they needed to discuss, when she had free time? If that were the case, she would have rather he never have visited in the first place. If that were the case, she could get all of her information from Josephine or Leliana. As it stood, she felt off-balance and like she had revealed too much of her hand.

Had they only been playing a game until now, then? Drawing closer to see which one of them would pull back first?

With a barely contained grunt of frustration, she threw her bow over her shoulders and moved to the door as well. No more ruminating on this. Maybe it would be early enough to go past the scouts and get in some snowman target practice herself.

* * *

It all happened quickly again, starting with Cassandra. The Seeker was there at all the beginnings, wasn’t she? When Elodie had fallen from the breach, and now when she was being lifted up to new heights.

Elodie had climbed up onto the walkway, had held up a sword given to her by the Seeker, and had accepted another title. In the back of her mind, a small voice wheedled that it was just another way to circumvent hearing her name uttered aloud ever again. But further at the forefront of her mind, Elodie knew this was a good cause, one that was worth whatever sacrifice she had to make in that moment. Cassandra had also brought up a good point; Elodie was already their leader in many ways. It only made sense to take on the title officially.

As she’d spoken to the crowd of people, she’d seen her companions below her, watching her, as if they were all committing this moment to their respective memories. Sera had shaken her head at the declaration Elodie made for the Dalish, as had Solas. _Elfy-elves_ , Sera’s eyes seemed to say as they rolled, whereas Solas’ were inscrutable and ever-narrowed. Elodie had ignored them both in favor of glancing around the rest of the crowd.

At her side, Cassandra and Leliana seemed to approve of her enthusiasm, and down below them Josephine had even given a whoop of praise. Cullen had riled the crowd up into a frenzy of applause Elodie felt she didn’t deserve, making her feel even more distant from the whole situation. And through it all, Varric had stood back with Dorian, the two of them observing the spectacle as if they were trying to figure out how they would retell it later.

Elodie had held the sword high, and she’d promised that she would wield it as justly as possible. And now that her words were ringing in her ears, and her forearm and shoulder were sore from holding up a weapon of that heft, Elodie found herself wandering aimlessly around for lack of anything better to do.

"I have to reply to these letters. Why don't you take a moment to explore? Could be fun," Josephine said after the advisors had strode through the remnants of the Great Hall.

"I suppose I should get acquainted with the layout of the place."

"It's even larger than it looks, according to Solas," Josephine admitted. "Best go now, before you get roped into something else."

Leliana and Cullen were busy discussing Varric's admission, so Josephine shooed her off without another word. Elodie left, grateful at least for the sunshine on her cheeks, the subtle bustle of people settling in, and the lack of anything definitive to do right away.

Secretly, however, she wished someone had offered to come with her. Scanning around for the Iron Bull or Sera yielded no results, and those were the two she could count on to follow her on random excursions no matter what. Elodie sighed. They’d probably gone searching for a cushion to sit on or a mug to empty. Best not to interrupt them.

Walking around soon took away her nerves probably better than any boisterous company would have, however. Skyhold was a mess that Elodie was immediately fond of.

There were holes all throughout the structure, not just in the walls but in roofs and floors too. It was an eyesore in some areas and a complete deathtrap in others, and she loved it from its dusty rafters down to its gorgeous crumbling stones. Twice she opened doors to find the way barred completely with wreckage. Once she almost tripped over a beam she was certain was meant to hold up the roof somehow. Through it all, she was enraptured.

Elodie only realized she was talking to herself out of pure joy when the cooks in the kitchens turned at her appreciative gasp. Elodie gave them an awkward salute then continued around, opening every door that she could and forgetting her worries as she mentally mapped out the area.

She found a tiny library with only one chair tucked away downstairs past the throne room, and she spent what must have been a half an hour trailing her hands over dusty tome spines and cobweb-filled corners. She found a garden, complete with derelict gazebo and spaces for potted plants, and Elodie could smell the potential that only truly fertile ground gave off. The gazebo that stood out there, she could tell, would also make a very nice place to relax, once renovated. She even found her own sleeping quarters, which honestly made her a bit uncomfortable with how large they were. She retreated from her room as soon as she got in it, but made note of where it was. She much preferred the battlements to her quarters; outside, she was afforded a majestic view of the mountains that left her feeling light and refreshed, but not too far removed from everyone else.

When exploring the dungeon area, Elodie almost stepped out into thin air, which was slightly more sobering than her battlement walk had been. She hadn’t expected the floor to just… stop. Structurally the dungeon still seemed sound, no creaking beams or dust falling to signal further risk of a cave-in. However, the loose gravel at the edge of the hole skittered out from underneath of her feet as if it were alive, and for one brief moment Elodie realized she could actually fall out into the roaring white.

Giving a cry of surprise, Elodie crossed her legs and sank to the stone. She found herself laughing, mostly to brush off the fear. The stone seemed sturdy enough beneath her, but she made a mental note to tell a builder to get out here just the same. Hopefully they could do something about the chunk that seemed to have just fallen arbitrarily away from the hold.

She decided to linger there for a bit, dangling her legs over the edge as she sat looking at the potential drop and contemplated this new fortress. It was big, too big, even for the large caravan of people she’d dragged with her all the way from Haven. That left some breathing room for the Inquisition to grow and expand as it liked without people getting too cramped, and Elodie highly approved of breathing room.

Elodie also loved the amount of deciduous trees in this place as compared to Haven; the pretty reds and golds framed her vision with each step outside, and she much preferred them to snow-covered pines. They reminded her of the Planasene up north.

On the walls near the entrance, she had also spotted places for draperies and banners. That was a nice thought, once Josephine could scrounge up some architects to fix the structural issues. She could hang up whatever banner she chose. She could help the Templars feel more at home, maybe fly a few of their flags around Skyhold if they liked.

The white noise soothed her as she mulled over what style of decoration she’d enjoy seeing in the throne room. Ferelden? Orlesian? Maybe Free Marches, a nod to the home she’d last had. The hushing roar of the water began to relax her like a lullaby, as waterfalls so often did, and her mind fixated on that last thought.

She’d said goodbye to Keeper Deshanna by a waterfall in the Free Marches, and before that she’d buried her father beside one in the Planasene, right after their trip to Jader. The roar of crashing water was a deeper comfort than she realized. At the same time, it stabbed her with a pinprick of regret.

It seemed that everything she grew fond of seemed to come with that caveat lately.

It was here, by herself, watching the water pour out over the ice and rock and into the Frostbacks, that Elodie felt the first pang of homesickness since Haven. It felt like clawing in the center of her chest, but also like an emptiness that seemed to threaten to cave in her bruised ribs. She put a hand to her sternum, confused. Why now?

Maybe because she could finally breathe halfway. Everything had been moving so quickly, one disaster to the next, and she’d done her best with each problem. It left very little time for contemplating, for missing people.

But now, looking out into the cold, fresh air, she thought back to her father. She thought back to planting a tree on his grave, and how quickly she’d had to move on from that too. She thought back to Deshanna, and how quickly she’d said goodbye to the Free Marches and gone to the Conclave. She’d said goodbye to the verdant emerald thread in her hahrens’ robes, and welcomed a sharper, more dangerous green spark into her life inadvertently.

Through the white noise of the waterfall, she could almost make out the faint strains of a familiar voice breathing a song as she drifted closer to sleep. Elodie closed her eyes, inhaling the impossible nostalgic scent of prophet’s laurel and honeycomb, and the words faded in and out past the crash of the droplets below.

_Elgara vallas, da’len_

_Melava somniar..._

It was then that a sudden image flashed before her eyes; an image of crashing light, gray fur rising, and elongated pink fingers reaching for her secret weaknesses. It threatened to send Elodie pitching over the ledge in a faint. She felt herself tipping forward, her vision tunneling into a spot, and she wondered vaguely how long it would take to reach her watery death at the bottom.

She pushed backwards, twisting to throw herself face down on the stone floor, her breath quick and desperate. For a moment she still worried she would still fall through; she could feel her legs slipping further against the slickened rock, or maybe that was just her adrenaline-fueled imagination. She clung to the cold stone beneath her fingers as reassurance that she was stable, slowly scooting herself further away from the broken ledge as she recovered.

Her breath was coming too quickly, reflecting back onto her cheek in hot puffs, and she tried to slow it down. Elodie rolled onto her back, kicking herself further away from the drop, and lifted her hands above her face. She stared at the purple ribbon on her wrist. She was awake, it was purple so it meant she was awake. Her eyes felt dry and crackly with static, and she shut them hard. Pressing both palms into her eyelids, she groaned until all of her air had left her lungs.

For a long time, she didn’t move. She told herself it was to make sure she was balanced before she sat up again, but truly, she feared what else she would see before her.

Would she revisit the vision of her father falling away from her? Of her own body lying shadowed in blood on a map at the table long burned within Haven’s chantry? Or worse... would new visions come and show her things beyond her own warped memories of events long past?

When Elodie finally opened her eyes, her gaze caught once more on the purple ribbon at her wrist. She wasn’t dreaming. This was no place for visions such as these. Varric’s original advice seemed to burst forth, as all sound advice tended to do, and urged her to her feet.

_Tell someone_.

With her frustration focusing in like a pinpoint, she stood and strode off to find the only elf who could explain such things, and who would know what to do.

* * *

“I don’t have anything else to share with you at this time, Inquisitor,” Solas informed her about a half an hour later. His voice contained an indulgent smile even though he was turned from her and she couldn’t confirm that he wore it. She wrung her hands. Much as she loved watching him paint in the rotunda as they spoke, she wanted more than he was giving her.

"You're sure?"

"I have recounted three stories about my ventures in the fade, four if you count my explanation of how I found this place. You're still not satisfied?"

"Hmph."

Elodie crossed her arms, and Solas went back to brushing diluted ink across the wall of the rotunda.

“Did you ask Josephine if you could paint in here?” she asked him, distracted by his brushstrokes.

Solas turned to look at her over his shoulder. A neutral scowl that read _I beg your pardon_ was written plainly across the thin line that was his lips. Elodie flushed, worried she’d offended.

“Because she’d love to see this, I think you should tell her.”

“It’s just a sketch,” he answered, his words calm but a notch tighter than they were before. “Now, if you please Inquisitor-”

“That can’t be all, Solas,” she begged.

“No, eventually the sketch will become a painting,” he teased, deliberately misinterpreting her.

“Can you tell me more about the fade?” she rephrased, trying to keep her voice patient and earnest instead of frustrated.

“Why the vested interest in my explorations?” he asked, turning and setting his paintbrushes down. She looked up at his preliminary sketches, enjoying the skeletal outline that would soon become a mural. It also gave her a chance to speak without meeting his intense gaze for a few seconds longer.

“Are you offended that I keep asking you for more?” she asked, trying half-heartedly to make sense of the large swooping half-moon on the left side of his sketch.

“On the contrary,” he corrected. “I delight in telling you about the ways of this world, beyond what you can see for yourself.” Her eyes found his, and she was shocked to find them alight with a kind of aloof playfulness. He raised one eyebrow. “But one does have to wonder why the curiosity has peaked so suddenly.”

“It’s not sudden,” she retorted, shaking her head at him. He was scrutinizing her, making her feel like she hadn’t left her Keeper far behind after all. Feeling the tips of her ears warm, Elodie lowered her gaze. “But I can see how I’m being a bother. _Ir abelas, hahren_ ,” the Elvish left her lips before she could stop it. It only furthered her embarrassment, and she turned to go. “I’ll leave you to your work.”

“You’re never a bother, _da’len_ ,” Solas said, and she stopped in her tracks at the responsive nomenclature he used. Solas picked up a charcoal stick and drew a long, even line of faint black across the wall, as if pretending that he couldn’t see her expression of bemusement. “I simply feel like you’re asking me the wrong questions, and then getting annoyed that I’m not giving you the answers you want.”

“I’m-” Elodie stopped herself. “Mmm.”

She was about to argue, but he was right. She’d come up here to ask him about seeing visions when she was awake, and she’d ended up begging him for story after story about the fade to distract herself.  It was like, subconsciously, she didn’t want to admit to him that anything was wrong after all. It was like she was trying to absorb his advice from his recollections instead of asking him for it outright.

She hadn’t been this indirect since before her father died.

She blushed, slightly resentful that Solas made her feel so young once more, but also weirdly dumbfounded by how much she felt comforted by it. With Solas, he didn’t seem to care much about her newly appointed title, just like how he hadn’t cared about her being Andraste’s chosen before that. Elodie sighed through her nose, a huff of breath that reminded her of her lost hart. Solas furrowed his brow at the noise.

“I’m not fond of feeling like I’m pulling teeth when I have conversations,” the elf before her said decisively, turning fully back to his mural. “So take your time, and let me know if I can be of any further assistance to you.”

“I’m seeing things again,” Elodie blurted. His hand paused, delicate fingers holding the brush in his hand perfectly still. She closed her eyes for a second, steeling herself with a blink. “The ribbon stays purple, so I know I’m awake, and I don’t know who else to talk to about it but you.”

The hand holding his brush faltered slightly, enough that Elodie worried he would drop it to the floor. His fingers steadied themselves.

"Are they the same visions as in the dreams?"

"Kind of..." Elodie bit her lip, trying to recall the latest flash. It stirred nauseous anxiety within her, however, so she just shrugged. Solas nodded as if he understood.

“I can see how that would be disconcerting. How often does this occur?”

“It only just happened recently, one time this morning. It was a flash from the dreams, only a little different, so part of me is worried that you’ll just explain it away based on stress. But the dreams feel… I don’t know, threatening? Recently, I can’t remember them when I wake up. I just…”

Elodie clacked her teeth together abruptly to keep from rambling further, almost biting her tongue in the process. She refused to blush deeper, thinking instead of how the snowmen earlier that day had burst under the impact of her arrows. Solas turned to her, setting the paintbrush down and pulling a cloth from his belt to wipe across his knuckles.

“That is interesting.”

“Why?” she asked. Why that word, instead of worrisome, or unpleasant, or dangerous?

“Well, for a variety of reasons; the main one being, we don’t know why it’s happening to you specifically, and only to you. I wonder if your mark could be affecting things, especially after your encounter so early on with an envy demon.”

“I would know if it had possessed me,” she said, but her voice was weak and small. It sounded like a question, even though she hadn’t meant it as one.

“ _I_ would know, even if you didn’t,” Solas said, his tone clipped.

He glanced her over, and Elodie felt her ears twitch backwards as he took her in. She cast her gaze to the rag in his hands. How did he always manage to make her feel simultaneously like she impressed him, and yet somehow didn’t surprise him at the same time?

“But you did defeat the demon all those months ago, in case you need to hear that aloud,” he allotted. “This is not possession, this is something different.”

“I’m done with it, whatever it is,” she murmured, looking up at him, surprised to find him biting his lower lip in thought. He was looking past her left shoulder instead of at her directly. “I don’t want to keep worrying everyone,” she added.

“That’s not exactly something you can help, regardless,” he answered, training that knowing gaze on hers as if he expected that statement to somehow be a comfort.

She narrowed her eyes, stubbornly thinking to herself that she could help it if she just hid things convincingly enough. As if he could read her mind, Solas gave a cat-like smirk.

“But I understand the sentiment. Let me see what answers I can find in the fade. Is that a more satisfactory answer?”

“I appreciate it, Solas,” Elodie said, sighing in a kind of contentment at the thought of a potential answer.

“My pleasure. In the meantime, you should try to distract yourself, see if you can’t find something to relax with.”

“Like…?” she trailed off, not quite sure what he meant.

“A hobby, Inquisitor,” he clarified, and with that he picked back up his paintbrush and turned his back to her with one final little smirk.

It was a dismissal, but she was alright with it. Elodie left, choosing to go out the main hall and down the stairs to the stables. Maybe on the walk there she could come up with an activity to further occupy her time as everyone settled in. Her hand went to her pocket, fingers tracing along the little fox statue that Cassandra had given her. It was a reflex she barely recognized she was doing, but as she walked she began to wonder what kind of trinket she could make from such an item. As her mind picked apart and rearranged the little statuette, Elodie's shoulders relaxed and she took the stairs down to the courtyard one at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I realize some things are only unlockable after you fast travel away then back again, but bear with me, lovelies**
> 
> The lullaby that Elodie hears is one called Mir Da'len Somniar, and the line translates like this:  
> Elgara vallas, da'len = Sun sets, little one,  
> Melava somniar = Time to dream
> 
> We'll see more of the Commander in the next chapter, hopefully getting a bit of clarity as we move on with getting settled. And once again, we have Solas giving Elodie some very good, constructive direction. I know she had to appreciate that, what with her insecurities about everything.
> 
> Also, the "taking stairs one at a time" line is totally an allusion to the fact that there is no fall damage in Skyhold. I don't think I climbed down stairs ever again after I figured that out XD


	10. Closing the Distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An eye-opening conversation with the Commander. It's hard to see past your own inner turmoil in order to reach out to someone, but I'm sure these two can handle it.

Elodie never made it as far as the stables. She found herself distracted by the surgeon setting up a fire and tents by the entrance to the keep. The amount of wounded still getting settled staggered her, and she walked through the camp seeking to find an opportunity to offer assistance.

Instead of being helpful, however, she found herself in the way. She had never been a healer, had no position nor experience to volunteer, and so she ended up observing more than volunteering. Every time she went to speak up, to try to speak with the surgeon herself, she found responses were stressed and short. In the end, she found herself at a loss as mages and doctors worked together to try to ease some of the wounded’s suffering.

Moving to the outskirts so as to not add to the clamor of potion bottles and groans of pain, Elodie watched two apostates working alongside the surgeon for a few minutes. She worked hard to quell the feeling of helplessness, and she found herself wondering what it would be like to possess the ability to heal others with her own energy. She was contemplating dragging Varric with her on a small excursion to bring back more healing herbs for them when she heard a series of commands ring out behind her.

“I want scouts on the perimeter immediately. We need to know what’s out there,” Cullen called, sending men away with their orders as he leaned over a crude map of the area. Elodie made her way over, observing the way the men and women moved when around the Commander. It was likely the surety in his voice that straightened their own spines and gave them the confidence with which to carry out any orders he gave.

It was inspiring, if worrisome. She could tell from his hunched posture that Cullen was tired, and yet here he was, still working to get everything secure. Elodie kept back, not wanting to interrupt, and was about to leave when a scout almost knocked her over as he turned on his heel.

“Begging your pardon, Inquisitor,” the scout uttered, dipping low in a salute, and Elodie held her hands up.

“No harm done.”

He left with another bow and apology, but Elodie couldn’t help but notice that Cullen was leaning further over the table, palms flat on the wood, instead of turning to greet her automatically. She moved closer to his side, her footsteps loud enough on the gravel that she knew realistically she wouldn’t be creeping up on the Commander. He didn’t turn to her, but continued to speak to the men and women at his side.

“I’ll need an update on the armory as well, and a full report from Sister Leliana in regards to supply routes and statuses of outbound agents,” Cullen said, and for a second the recruits hesitated as if they were uncertain whether he was talking to them or to Elodie. She paused, unsure herself, until Cullen looked up at the recruit to his right. “Now!”

The men scampered off with a hasty bow, and Elodie resisted the almost overwhelming urge to reach out and stroke the mane of fur around the Commander’s shoulders. He sighed deeply, turning finally to meet her gaze.

"Keeping busy, I see?" Elodie said, the way they'd parted earlier than morning still fresh on her mind.

Cullen winced, a tiny expression that Elodie almost didn't catch, as if he were remembering the exact same thing. He cleared his throat, and for a brief moment she feared that he was going to retreat again. She bit her lip, waiting, and Cullen turned back to her with a steadier gaze than she'd dared to hope for.

“Skyhold is much more defensible than I expected. We set up as best we could at Haven, but we could never prepare for an Archdemon, or whatever it was.” He shook his head and brought a hand up to rub his temple. “With some warning we might’ve…”

He trailed off, his words becoming a frustrated exhale instead.

“Nothing we could have done would have stopped Corypheus. You know that, right?” Elodie asked, her voice soft and soothing as healer apostates and volunteer Templars continued to bring refugees into Skyhold behind her. Cullen sighed, then glossed over her question.

“We don’t know what’s out here. Until we do, I’m just trying to outline our next best course of action. If Corypheus strikes again, we might not be able to withdraw.” His voice grew quiet, a murmur that Elodie wondered if she was supposed to hear. “And I wouldn’t want to.”

She tilted her head, brow furrowed. His voice was heavy, and the simplicity of his statement took her aback. It sounded like he was conflicted, but she couldn’t be sure about what. There was plenty from the last few days to give anyone pause, especially someone in charge of the welfare of so many.

“We must be ready,” he continued. “Work on Skyhold is underway, and guard rotations established. We should have everything on course within the week. We will not run from here, Inquisitor.” He paused, finally looking up from the map, and blinked as if he were stopping himself from another potential lecture. “Does the space seem adequate to you? Forgive me, I haven’t even consulted you yet.”

Elodie considered playing with him, asking him if he needed a full report on the matter within the hour, but his demeanor stopped her jokes before they ever reached her tongue.

His hazel eyes were dull and searching. He looked like he had a wicked headache on top of everything else that must have been weighing him down. But here he was, making an effort not to withdraw. After their brief encounter this morning, Elodie knew it must be taking its toll on him to brush past whatever had bothered him and try to speak to her normally again. She swallowed, just barely resisting the urge to reach out to brush back a curl from Cullen's forehead; instead, she managed to find her excitement from exploring and drew it back out.

“Rest assured, Commander, we could fit an army twice our size. This place is _huge_.”

She saw his eyes crinkle slightly in the corners as he contemplated giving her a smile, and it spurred her on.

“On top of ample sleeping quarters for everyone, I found a space for a garden just waiting to be planted, and there’s an entire cave that can be converted into use for crafting weapons and armor. I can see sparring grounds over there someday, if you look at the flat ground by the stairs before you get to the dungeon. And I plan to put in some new additions for our Templar allies, once I can get my hands on some rock and lumber. I’ll need to get out and explore sometime soon, see what I can find for the Inquisition's use.”

She was rambling, she could feel it, but the soft look of approval he bestowed on her made it so that her words still spilled forth.

“Just imagine it! Herbs so that our healers want for nothing, training ground for every level of recruit, no more holes in the roofs or rocks to trip over. Not to mention once we clean up a bit inside,” she gestured behind her at the steps that led to the throne room and gave a happy noise instead of finishing her sentence. “It’ll be incredible. It already _is_ incredible.”

He seemed to cheer at her enthusiasm, but not enough for her liking. He was still preoccupied, his mind still on the unknown beyond the fortress walls. Elodie felt her smile fade from her lips, and she tilted her head.

“A-are you feeling alright?”

He nodded, but she was unconvinced.

“As alright as any of us can be, given the circumstances,” he said softly. "Better than this morning, but it's still... heavy," he amended lamely, his voice taking on a tone of shame.

Ah. She understood now, or at least she thought she did. It was not their past magnetism that was bothering the Commander. It was what Elodie reminded him of when she drew near.

“How many did we lose in Haven?” Elodie asked gently.

“Most of our people made it to Skyhold. It could’ve been worse,” he confirmed, taking a tablet from an agent that approached from his left. He glanced over it, then signed his approval at the bottom before he sent the woman away once more. “Because of you,” he said to Elodie, “morale is high. It’s improved greatly since you accepted the role of Inquisitor.”

“I’m happy to be of some help,” Elodie said tonelessly, thinking to the people she hadn’t managed to save. It didn't matter to them that she was in charge of the Inquisition henceforth. She could still hear the screams if she got too quiet. On top of everything, Elodie still hadn’t been able to look at the recovered mounts they’d picked up along the way, couldn’t bear to see if Boosifus was among them or not. Cullen stood straighter and shook his head as if he could read her tone.

“You know, I think Minaeve is speaking with Dorian inside if you were looking for her,” he hinted. Elodie looked up, eyes narrowed, waiting for him to explain. He ignored her and continued, “I also think Seggrit was setting himself up with Cassandra and some of the other requisitions officers, over by the forge if I’m not mistaken. That is, if you were interested in catching up with either of them."

"I... could go by and say hello."

"While you're at it, Lysette is in charge of the guard for now. When I spoke last with her, I overheard five young soldiers telling a story about how your arrows filled the Venatori like pincushions. Not to mention the merchant, Baelam, already planning to speak with Josephine about salvaged inventory. His youngest daughter seems to be completely enamored with you, and for some reason _also_ spoke of arrows.”

Elodie squinted at him, suspicious, and Cullen chuckled.

“At least, she was the last time I spoke with him. What was her name, Kendra, Kera… anyway, she said something about a bunch of snowmen you took care of this morning?”

“Are you planning to list all of the survivors by name?” Elodie asked, smiling despite the gnawing remorse still harbored in her heart.

“I wasn’t. But if it helps you realize how grateful I- how grateful we are, then I will.” He gave a small nod, and his expression slid through her like a viscous shot of sweetened liquor. “Without hesitation,” he finished quietly.

She paused, jaw open, and found she could not reply. The distance she’d felt before, the distance Cullen had apologized for, felt as if it were decreasing with each of their exchanged words. Could it be this easy to come together again, as they had before?

It was almost too much to hope for.

Elodie felt the homesickness wash over her again, but this time it was not for the ivy green of Keeper robes: it was for snowy starlight, for an ice-covered lake, and for flat skipping stones held in weapon-calloused palms. Cullen was looking at her with quiet understanding, and she found herself recalling their last conversation in Haven.

_Let that thing hear you._

His voice played in her ears, his tone resigned and yet somehow still fierce. They had both thought she was going to die. They had both known that it was going to be a kind of goodbye. Elodie searched Cullen's expression now, wishing that she had more practice with words so that none of what she was feeling in this moment would come out stilted or wrong. She wanted to ask him if he needed more time. She wanted to ask him if he missed their talks. She wanted to ask him if he still had her necklace, or if it had been lost in the fleeing.

Did he wear it now? Its length would mean the glass ring would be encircling the center of his chest, if he were. She wanted to reach out, to push right in the middle of his armor, just to see if she could feel it beneath the metal.

“Inquisitor?” Cullen whispered, and she realized she was staring, her lips parted. Elodie cleared her throat.

“That title,” she muttered, tossing away her previous train of thought in favor of this one. “Inquisitor Lavellan. Strange, don’t you think?”

“Not at all,” he retorted. He sounded surprised, as if he believed more than anything that she were suited to the job.

“Is that the official response?” she joked. “Answering on behalf of those that appointed me?”

“I suppose it is,” he chuckled, “but you have to admit it’s the truth. We needed a leader, and you’ve proven yourself worthy ten times over.”

At a loss for words, she could only stare up at him, marveling at how a few inches of height difference still somehow managed to make her feel so small in comparison.

“Thank you, Cullen,” she whispered. He gave her a smile that was familiar, self-assured, and she thought that would be a good time to step away. He had apologized. They were on unsteady ground together once more, but at least they were together. She should leave it at that, count her blessings, and just go.

Instead, her feet moved forward of their own volition, and she found herself trying to force out the words even though she knew they weren’t eloquently put.

“Our escape from Haven… it was close.”

She shook her head, needing to tell him how she’d ached at the thought of not knowing if he had survived.

“I’m relieved that you-” his eyebrows raised imperceptibly, and she felt herself losing steam, “that... so many made it out.”

She could kick herself. She wanted to run, or to scrap the conversation and try to start over. Were it not for the soft answer from the Commander, she might’ve.

“As am I,” he whispered back, and he seemed to hold a moment of silence for those who hadn’t left Haven’s rubble.

Elodie was consumed by selfish thoughts as she waited. Had Cullen heard her hesitation? Had he caught her original meaning? Elodie searched his features, his downcast eyes, his pursed frown. Could he tell that she was undeniably, almost guiltily, pleased that _he specifically_ made it out?

No. Not from the look of it, anyway. He seemed to be contemplating a lot in the span of only a second, but maybe it was better to leave him to it. She glanced to her left, about to stumble awkwardly away, when Cullen stepped forward and reached out, as if he meant to pull her to his chest and only just refrained. She stopped, mentally begging him to say what she could not.

“You stayed behind,” he breathed, his voice quiet but laden with immeasurable emotion. He was staring at her with that almost accusatory glare again, and had Elodie not known any better she would have thought he disapproved. However, underneath the frown he wore, there was an intensity that she recognized in herself. He had worried about her, just as she had worried about him.

“I had to,” she breathed, prompting him to continue

“You _chose_ to, even knowing what you were up against. You could have…” Cullen trailed off, as if even voicing the thought of her almost-sacrifice aloud was too much to bear.

She wanted to ask him how he’d felt, finding her in the snow. She wanted to ask him why he hadn't held her while she healed, why he’d avoided her afterwards as they walked towards Skyhold, and why he’d kept that distance. Instead of saying anything at all, Elodie simply watched Cullen process what he was trying to say.

Looking away for a moment, he seemed to regain his bearings enough to redirect his hazel eyes back to hers. He stared her down, his jaw set with righteous cause. When he next spoke, her knees almost buckled at the intensity of his tone.

“I will not allow the events at Haven to happen again, Elodie. You have my word.”

Elodie stood there, the weight of his promise feeling heavy in her palm like the sword she’d lifted above the cheering crowd, and she broke eye contact first. Looking down at the mark concealed by halla leather on her palm, she flexed her hand and tried to absorb what he had just promised. Surely, he didn’t think that Haven was his fault? She raised her eyes back to him as he moved over to his work once more.

Before she could ask him, or tell him more about how she felt, Elodie caught a dark shadow out of the corner of her eye, at the top of the steps waving down to them both. It was Leliana. Her circular Chantry brooches held her dark charcoal cloak about her shoulders, and she looked very much like one of her messenger crows when not glimmering silver in the sunlight. Elodie waved back weakly at her spymaster, and she watched Leliana acknowledge the gesture with a nod and disappear just inside Skyhold’s doors, presumably to wait for Elodie to come and join at her leisure.

“Cullen?” Elodie murmured, speaking before she thought.

“Yes, Inquisitor?” he grunted in response, already bent back over the papers on the workbench in front of him.

“Out of curiosity,” Elodie asked, “did you leave anyone behind in Kirkwall?”

“No. I fear I made few friends there,” he said, moving a map so that its corners laid smooth against the table. “And my family’s in Ferelden.”

He was oblivious. Elodie swallowed, trying to suppress the warm tinglings of a blush from creeping up her neck to her ears.

“So…” she kicked out with her boot, sending a little pebble skittering a few inches. “No one… _special_ caught your interest?”

Cullen paused, an incredulous exhale his only response, and Elodie wished desperately that he would turn so that she could see his facial expression.

The thing was... she had never outright asked. Even as Elodie drew closer and closer to him, she'd never really delved into where Cullen's heart lay. Had never talked to him about where hers did either. They moved like magnets- but they were people. With pasts.

Had he hated the celibacy question before because he had a sweetheart he’d been writing in his free time, and didn't want to be reminded of her? Did his close brush with death at Haven remind him of his long distance lover, of how he'd almost died without her? Was this why he’d been avoiding Elodie after the explosion? Guilt for having led her on? Her mind was a spiral of quick, far-reaching conclusions, every one worse than the last.

She should never have asked. Elodie was about to try to take back her question when Cullen looked up at her, eyes playful and sweet.

“No." He paused, giving her a quick up and down. "Not in Kirkwall, anyway.”

Elodie caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying not to smile as wide as she wanted to at the implication. Cullen turned back to his papers, and she knew somehow that he wasn’t going to clarify.

“I… I’m going to call a meeting of the war council momentarily,” Elodie said meekly, wishing she had something else to say.

She looked back down at her Commander and tilted her head so that she could see past his fur mantle. His facial expression was set as he focused his attention fully on the maps of the area, but even from here Elodie could tell that his eyes looked exhausted.

“I’ll be here,” he replied. "Send for me when you're ready."

Blinking in the gentle shade of Skyhold's shadow as the afternoon sun glowed above them, a thought burst forth in Elodie's mind.

“I have a specific request for you, Cullen. Something I need you to do before the war meeting.”

That got his attention. His turned to her once more, shifting his weight as if his armor was heavier than it had been a moment ago.

“Name it.”

Elodie stepped forward. This close, any scout that came up would not overhear. This close, any agent nearby would be unable to catch what was being said without interrupting. This close, she could almost imagine what it would be like if Cullen leaned down so that she could hold him to her in an embrace, something they hadn’t shared since Haven.

She placed a hand on the cool metal of Cullen’s breastplate, her palm barely touching the draped crimson material overlaying it. She wanted to respond to his eagerness in kind, to fully bask in his immediate willingness to do as she asked... but she decided against it and cleared her throat instead.

“Inside Skyhold, there is a small room downstairs, in a cool, dark cellar. It’s like a library, but with only enough room for a couple of chairs. It’s on your left as you walk towards the throne. Do you know it?”

“No, but I’m sure I can find it easily,” he answered, his voice hesitant as he tried to figure out what she was getting at. She nodded.

“Good. I’d like for you to go there now and have a moment to yourself.”

She raised her eyes to his, saw the fight therein, and she endeavored to look as earnest as possible. He winced.

“You need a break,” she clarified, hoping it didn’t sound as if she was ordering him to work.

“I… appreciate the sentiment, Inquisitor,” he stopped, and his eyes darted away as he brought one hand to the back of his neck in obvious discomfort. “However, I don’t particularly like small, closed-off spaces.”

“Oh.” Elodie blinked, feeling like she should have known this about him sooner.

Is that why walking outside had been his method of clearing his head back at Haven? She bit her lip and drummed her fingertips on the glimmering gold of his breastplate while she reconsidered.

“I didn't know that. Give me a moment.”

“Please don’t feel as if you have to-”

“Wait,” she dropped her voice a bit lower and snapped her gaze back up to his, her tone conveying the excitement of someone who didn’t have to share a secret, but was going to anyway. She drummed her fingers gently against his chest. “I’ve got it. If you go past the dungeons, there’s this massive hole.”

His eyes found hers again, the shock therein fading to something more familiar, something she hadn’t seen since their last talk in the snow. It looked like amusement alight in his eyes for the first time since Haven. He shifted his weight, pressing himself forward just slightly into her palm. One of his eyebrows quirked in friendly skepticism, and he placed both hands on his hips.

“A hole.”

“Yes, just a huge, random hole in the wall and floor. Like someone reached out and took a chunk straight out of Skyhold itself. It’s got no railings, it’s wicked high up, and you don’t seem excited, Commander.”

He laughed at her comment, a rumble that she imagined she could feel in her palm.

Maker, what would it be like to press her hand to Cullen’s bare chest as he laughed?

“Forgive me my lack of enthusiasm,” Cullen teased. He brought his hand across his waist, resting both palms on the pommel of his sword, and Elodie could feel him pressing gently into the palm of her hand as if he wanted to maintain the connection with her. Cullen glanced down at her with mischievous eyes. “Do you want me to write up a report to fix said hole?”

“No, of course not. You must absolutely leave it be,” she scoffed, then failed at keeping the smile from her lips. She tilted her head down, eye level with his fur mantle, trying to keep him from seeing her grin. “Just take a moment there to close your eyes, after you sit down away from the ledge of course.”

Another small breath of mirth from him, and Elodie looked up with unconcealed longing.

“If you could go there to have a moment to yourself… I want you to picture the stars, Cullen.”

He was looking down at her with a combination of confusion and something she could only describe as being moved, as if he appreciated the sentiment. Elodie beamed back at him, pleased that she seemed to have struck a nerve.

“Until I can find us a quiet place within Skyhold to stargaze from,” she continued as she glanced around, thinking about all the renovations she wanted to get done, “your imagination will just have to do.”

“I’m not sure if my imagination is vivid enough to conjure up something so soothing at the moment,” he murmured, and her heart beat harder in her chest at his desolate tone.

“Try for me, Commander,” she whispered.

His demeanor shifted in an instant, and Elodie forgot momentarily how to breathe. The sadness in his voice gave way to a breathy noise in the back of his throat, one that Elodie responded to with an echoed exhale. Her words seemed to kindle something within him, an immediate response to her that warmed the air surrounding them.

He glanced down at her mouth, his eyes dark and searching, and she found her gaze growing heavy. She responded to his proximity, unconsciously tilting her chin up just a degree, but it was more than enough to encourage him. The boot of his right foot slid closer, gravel underneath them cracking quietly as he kept his gaze on her lips and bent his head a fraction further.

He was going to kiss her.

The sound of metal on metal, a sharp clang of an anvil, brought Elodie back to reality and made her flinch. Sounds of the people around her still trying to settle in reminded her of where she was, of how many people could see how close they were standing to one another. She blinked a few times and pulled her fingers back from his armor as if the metal burned to touch. Cullen seemed to feel the same. His belts creaked as he stretched in place, but he took a step back as well, mirroring her body language.

Absurdly, Elodie could picture him in a ballroom, and she’d bet he was a good dancer. He seemed to be in tune with her, instinctively moving alongside her body in ways that left her breathless without him even having to touch her.

Unable to speak, Elodie straightened the scarf around her neck to regain some self-control, and was pleased to notice that Cullen seemed to roll his shoulders for the same reason. His jaw was clenched, his eyes once again focused on the map underneath of his gloved hands. However, and it might have just been a trick of the sunlight, he seemed much more awake than he had a moment ago.

“Inquisitor,” Cullen said, his tone clipped. Elodie tried not to feel smug when she walked past him, noting that his skin was just slightly pinker than it had been. She tried to think of something to say to him, something to leave him with, but preferred the way _try for me_ lingered on the tip of her tongue.

If Leliana noticed anything different about Elodie as she climbed the steps and entered Skyhold’s main hall, the former bard chose not to mention it. Instead, she began to walk slowly forward, and Elodie fell into step beside her.

“What do you think of our new base of operations?” Leliana asked.

“It’s enormous. And in dire need of some repairs,” Elodie said. She cleared her throat. “That was, ah, what I was mentioning to Commander Cullen just now.”

“I’m sure he’ll take your concerns very seriously,” Leliana said, her eyes alight with conviviality but her mouth set in a neutral line. “He seemed extremely invested in whatever it was that you were whispering to him just now.”

“H-have you explored Skyhold?” Elodie asked, trying to divert her Spymaster away from the subject at hand. She tucked some of her curls behind her ear, trying to hide how her own lips seemed to want to twist into a smile without her permission.

Luckily for her, Leliana seemed to be in a benevolent mood today.

“Parts of it,” she replied. “I’ve made some notes with Josephine and Vivienne, some things for builders and specialists to attend to while you’re out on your next mission.”

“Sending me away again so soon?” Elodie joked.

Her voice was husky, barely laced with aggression she hadn’t meant to let loose in the first place, and Leliana seemed to watch her with an even more contemplative air. Her gaze turned up and mercifully away after a second, and Elodie exhaled slowly.

“I can see why, after recent events, you would be nervous to leave us here without your protection.”

Elodie didn’t argue with her, and instead looked up alongside Leliana into the naked rafters of the barren hold while they moved slowly towards the throne.

“I would be nervous staying here myself, had I not seen the way things ended at Haven,” Leliana said carefully.

“The way things ended?” Elodie repeated. “You mean the avalanche? Or the Archdemon?"

"I mean how you drove off a formidable foe, willing to sacrifice yourself in the process so that we could get to safety."

Elodie swallowed hard, still raw at the memory.

"What does that have to do with me leaving you defenseless?”

“Because we are not defenseless. With your burying of Haven, you’ve bought us time, Inquisitor. More importantly, you’ve given the masses cause to hope. We have a few precious moments where Corypheus will not pursue us, but now we have a tiny bit of breathing room in the coffin he thinks he nailed us in.”

“But he will come for us again,” Elodie said, remembering how easily the Elder One had lifted her aloft, holding her by her wrist, dangling her like a toy. Her elbow still ached if she turned it a certain way. “What if I’m not here when he does?”

“No offense meant, your Worship, but you seem to vastly underestimate how much Corypheus will want to exact revenge on you specifically. If he does come for Skyhold, he will not come when you are gone.”

“Hardly a comforting thought, but I appreciate it nonetheless,” Elodie replied as she tugged a curl behind her ear.

“You are more than just a person, Inquisitor. You are a symbol to some, and a savior to many.” Leliana held her hands together behind her back, looking out at the throne and all the debris littered before it. Elodie followed her gaze as she continued. “But in the meantime, you’ve given us new missives, not to mention new resources. Our Tevinter friend is already in the library on a scholarly rampage, I’ll have you know.” She sounded pleased, although with Leliana it could be difficult to tell.

“Is he now?” Elodie smirked. “The library downstairs, right?”

“No. The downstairs library is only for rare books, a quiet space for contemplation. There is a library on the second floor, to your right, past the rotunda,” Leliana motioned with one hand while they wandered past where Elodie knew Solas was sketching. “That’s where Dorian is working on setting himself up a corner for research purposes. It’s larger, more open, and just above it is where you’ll find Minaeve’s research assistants, and me.”

"Past where Solas is?"

"Yes." Leliana quirked a corner of her mouth, smiling to herself. "I never knew he was an artist. Seems to suit him, though, doesn't it?"

Elodie nodded, smiling to herself.

“I’ll have to go explore that tower next,” Elodie said.

Leliana seemed content to walk alongside her at an amicably slow pace, as if she were taking a break herself before they went back to work, and she did not reply.

“Where is Josephine?” Elodie wondered aloud.

“She’s still writing letters at the moment, announcing the Inquisition’s new leadership. She was with Cassandra when I left her, but I have a feeling she might have retreated somewhere more private, with a slightly bigger desk space.”

“I see.” Elodie walked with the former bard for a bit longer, taking in the unkempt splendor of the huge arching ceilings. “Will it take long to make this space livable, do you think?”

“Oh no. What with Josephine’s connections and Vivienne’s eye for style, we will be worthy of visiting dignitaries in no time. I assume that Cullen will be speaking to Scout Harding about requisitions information for when you next set off, as well.”

“I’m happy to hear it,” she confessed. “It will be good getting back to some semblance of normalcy after everything.”

“I agree.” Leliana stopped, and Elodie noted that they were in front of the door to her quarters. “I’ll see you in the war room momentarily,” she said, tilting her head to wait for confirmation from Elodie.

“Yes.” She looked around. “Where… exactly is it?”

“Just one door down from here, on your right,” Leliana said, smiling faintly.

“I’ll meet you at there shortly then,” Elodie said. Before they parted ways, however, she hesitated. “Are you… alright, Leliana?”

“Me?” the redhead blurted in soft surprise. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

The memory of Leliana praying, of her crisis of faith in the courtyard, of the way she had blamed herself and taken the guilt into herself, resurfaced. It reminded Elodie strangely of how Cullen had promised her through gritted teeth that the events at Haven would not repeat themselves under his watch. Josephine, too, had literally put work aside to try to attend to Elodie’s wounds earlier that day.

Did they all feel guilty? Were they all locked in the confines of their own minds, even just momentarily, blaming themselves with what-ifs?

"Inquisitor?"

“I’m sorry,” Elodie whispered, her voice weak. “For everything.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Leliana said, her voice quiet, but firm.

Elodie was silent, and the redhead sighed.

“It is difficult,” Leliana whispered, “coming to grips with everything that has transpired in the last few days.” Elodie’s eyes burned slightly with the sting of fresh tears, and she swallowed hard as she nodded at the former Left Hand. Leliana relaxed her features, almost smiling. “But we truly are in your debt, Inquisitor.”

“I…” Elodie bit back the rest of her thought. She nodded and turned to the door that would lead to her quarters. “I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations.”

“Shall I go find Josephine and get the meeting underway?”

“Actually, if it’s alright, I might go upstairs and change before we call everyone together.” She shifted her weight awkwardly, hoping that Leliana couldn’t read into how desperately close Elodie was to tears. “I haven’t been out of my armor much the last few days, and I’m pretty sure I’m still carrying splinters in my hair from Haven.”

“Would you like for me to send someone upstairs to help you?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Elodie put on a stoic smile of her own. “I’ll meet you within the hour. Through that door, you said?” she asked, pointing to her right. Leliana nodded, and she left with an incline of her head in lieu of bow. Elodie returned the gesture and pushed the heavy wooden door behind her open. She closed it shut with a shuddering sigh, and after a second’s hesitation Elodie clicked the deadbolt into place as well.

* * *

She didn’t like crying. Normally, when overwhelmed, she would find something else to do to take her mind off of things, usually something physical. Now, as she opened a dresser containing some clean shirts her size, Elodie had to look up at the ceiling to prevent the tears from spilling forth unbidden.

Josephine must have had the clothes brought up when Elodie was exploring the keep. That must have been why she wanted her to go walk around, to take her time. She had stocked Elodie’s quarters with modest outfits, brushes for her hair, blankets on her bed, and fresh linens and towels for when Elodie wanted to wash up. Hadn’t Elodie confessed to her that she really wanted a bath first thing? The thoughtfulness threatened to crush Elodie's heart.

“Stop, stop, just stop,” she whispered, but it was no use. She was too far gone. The thought of Josephine putting her energy towards the tiny details in her quarters wrecked the last of Elodie’s resolve.

She sank to the floor by the dresser, an ugly beige tunic in her hands, and cried. Whether it was from relief, guilt, or empathy, she couldn’t say. But since Haven, since her brush with death and her frostbitten walk, Elodie had not shed a single tear. Now, alone up in a tower above the people she was expected to save, Elodie could not hold back any longer. She let the emotions wash over and through her, cleansing her with each sob she buried in tan fabric. Her ribs stung with each muscle clench, reminding her of what she’d sacrificed only a few days prior, and the ache spurred her to sob even more deeply into the cloth.

It only lasted a short while. After a few minutes, the feelings subsided enough that she could sit straight again and try to control her breathing. She had slight hiccups, but otherwise was able to breathe deeply and soothingly until the crying stopped altogether.

Once she was calm, Elodie looked down at the pajama-like clothes in her hand and gave a bark of laughter. If she’d had to use something in the room as a makeshift handkerchief, at least she’d chosen something she had no desire to wear in the first place. Taking out some clean clothes from the dresser, Elodie began to unhook and unbuckle until she was in her smallclothes with her armor in a pile at her side.

Stretching on the floor before she dressed again, she caught her eye on the stained glass windows surrounding her on all sides. The glass depicted a delicate moon-phase, and the rug beneath her was ratty but a very pretty moss green. She lay back without dressing just yet, her eyes trailing up the ceiling and around until they eventually came to rest on the bed before her. The floor beneath her was hard, but comforting. She could sleep. Now that she was laying prone with no mail heavy on her chest, she could sleep; she knew that if she did, nobody would disturb her.

Elodie paused.

She thought to Josephine, a stack of letters in her hand that she’d set aside to help Elodie buckle herself earlier that morning, now most likely hard at work maintaining what meager contacts with noble houses that the Inquisition still had at their disposal.

She thought to Leliana, who had looked distant and vaguely in thought, reminding Elodie starkly of how she’d seemed in Haven after the death of her friend; the Nightingale must be suffering, but she did so in complete silence, and with a hint of a smile on the corner of her lips despite it all.

And she thought to Cullen, the weight of his armor never once preventing him from standing straight as he gave orders to their troops. Elodie hoped he had gone to the waterfall by the hole like she’d ordered, but had a feeling that he wouldn’t. He would want to get back to business, not waste time imagining the stars. But at least he had appreciated the thought.

Getting up with a sigh, Elodie pulled on the tight leather breeches with minor difficulty, dancing in them a bit to get them on past her hips, and she cinched them tightly about her waist. She clamored into the long-sleeved tunic, lacing it as best she could up the back. The ache in her ribs almost made her cry out as she twisted to reach the highest portion of the ties in the center of her back, just beneath her shoulder blades. Feeling as if she needed another layer, she dug around until she could find a simple brown vest to add on top of everything. Plus, it gave her the added perk of a few pockets should she need them.

Elodie didn’t allow herself the time to rest, not even when she was fully done up. She ran a brush through her hair, dried her eyes on the beige pajamas once more, and decided she was satisfied. When her advisors could sleep, that was when she would too. When her troops were settled and clean, then she could bathe. When her people were safe, she would be able to breathe.

She took the steps down to the war room two at a time, the bounce in her step a genuine one.

Elodie was the Inquisitor now, and there was work to be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **So happy I played Elodie on PC so that I could mod the shit out of those beige pajamas**


	11. The Seeker Confessional

Leaving never got any easier, even though Elodie convinced herself it was nothing each time she set off from Haven before. Now, the first mission she had been sent on from Skyhold was to Crestwood, and she had a sinking feeling that it would take a while getting used to the Tirashan Swiftwind beneath her.

Her Brecilian was never found, and in her heart she whispered that it meant he got away. Her current mount, resolutely unnamed, was a gift from Blackwall. It was thoughtful of him. However, sitting atop the great beast, her hand resting impassively on the dark blue line of fur streaking from its nose to its tail, Elodie wished that Blackwall had chosen a horse for her instead. Even a varghest would have been preferrable.

But she knew his heart was in the right place. And so Elodie took her place atop it as she and her party left Skyhold.

They traveled at a leisurely pace, even though meeting with Hawke at Varric’s insistence had been top priority. Hawke was intimidating and to the point, but Elodie had still felt relatively at ease. She had a new goal to focus on, and it did her good to be thinking of the next step.

After that meeting on the ramparts, and then the subsequent argument in the loft above the forge when Cassandra got wind of Hawke’s presence, Elodie began to slow down. For some reason, it felt like she was climbing a set of stairs in the dark, unsure of when she’d reach the top and get that sinking feeling in her chest when her foot stepped through thin air.

If possible, she wanted to delay that last step as long as she could. Her motivation at having a battleplan began to falter. She began to see more of the cracks in her companions' visages, more lines of worry in the corners of the smiles her advisors gave her as way of goodbye.

The group she’d chosen to go with her to Crestwood were all close enough to her to tell something was wrong, Elodie was sure of it. That fact did nothing to ease her conscience, and only seemed to cause further anxiety. It was like listening to one's own breathing; once one was aware, it was very hard to ignore it again. Dorian’s conversations were a relief during the day, at least. They were usually so lighthearted that they bordered on flippant, but he could not be around her at all times. At night Elodie's thoughts grew still and worrisome.

As they got further and further from Skyhold, Elodie’s mood darkened more and more. She had been almost happy when she’d left the war council meeting. She had spoken with Hawke and diffused a fistfight with a harsh word and a smile, and had very much felt at peace in her role as Inquisitor. Varric had apologized, not only to her but to Cassandra as well, which had been an unexpected development, and life had moved on with a pleasant glow. It had seemed as if Elodie was suited to her new job.

But with each footfall of her mount, Elodie felt an echoing palpitation of dread in her core beneath her jagged ribs. Unable to stop herself from fixating on it, she tried to figure it out in the quieter moments.

On the third day, Elodie put words to her anxiety. She was being complacent in her happiness.

Being in a good mood meant comfort, relaxation, things that she could no longer afford. Any moment now, the archdemon’s shadow would hover over her shoulder as it swooped in to drag her off and finish her carcass the way Corypheus had intended back at Haven. And here she was laughing, smiling, enjoying the sunshine.

She began to grow overly cautious, to the point of jumpiness. The amount of times she flinched out of a daydream as they rode towards Crestwood made her feel jittery and overwhelmed. By the time they made camp on the seventh day of their journey, she was almost listless with fatigue.

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra quipped once Elodie had dismounted and given the reins of her hart to a steward.

Without question, Elodie strode over to the Seeker’s side and stood at attention, waiting for whatever her companion had stored up for her. It was either going to be advice or a beratement, and Elodie could shoulder neither at the moment. The sooner she got it over with, the sooner Elodie could go off on her own and try to take a minute to still her mind. Cassandra’s eyebrows furrowed, concern drawing her lips into a thin line.

“You look tired.”

Elodie raised an eyebrow.

“I always look tired,” she shot back in what she hoped was a fond tone. It was true at least. That was one of the downsides of wearing black eyeliner in the rain.

“More so than usual,” Cassandra pressed. “Have you been having any… nighttime trouble recently?”

“I’ve been sleeping,” Elodie lied.

She’d been _trying_ to sleep, and for the most part she reasoned that she was probably dozing for at least a few hours a night.

The first night away from Skyhold had been easiest; as she’d drifted into sleep under the stars outside of her tent, she’d imagined Cullen beside her, pointing out different starry constellations. In her dreams, Cullen had drawn gentle fingers up and down Elodie's spine as she snuggled against his chest. Upon waking, she’d tried to ignore the yearning to turn around and go back to Skyhold to find the Commander and make the dream a reality.

But every night after that as they approached Crestwood had been colder and damper than the last. Now, on the outskirts of the city, the rain was positively coming down in misty buckets. It was like they existed inside of a perpetual stormcloud. Even if she’d tried to sleep outside again, there would have been no stars to comfort her.

Elodie realized that Cassandra was still staring at her, and she cleared her throat awkwardly.

"I have," she insisted.

Looking up at the intimidating woman before her -damn, a few inches really did make a difference- Elodie could tell that Cassandra did not believe her. Cassandra was standing unflinching as raindrops beat onto her blue vitriol breastplate. She looked as if she was debating taking Elodie by her ear and dragging her into her bedroll, or trying to piece together a metaphor to comfort her. Behind Cassandra’s left shoulder, tents began to crop up as if they had minds of their own as scouts prepared their campsite. There would be no hot food tonight, but gentle oil-lamps could warm their hands within the treated fabric walls, and Elodie stared longingly at the dark maroon tent that she knew was hers. She should go help them.

Cassandra caught her arm before Elodie could walk past, and Elodie went limp at the touch. The sensation, the sudden response at being held even if it was just at her elbow, was immediate and aching. She realized that she was deprived, and wanted to be held by someone badly.

Who had been the last person to hug her?

Sera tended to throw her arm around Elodie’s neck when they were telling stories around the fire. Blackwall would pat her shoulder. Josephine had gripped her hands tightly before sending her off, probably fearful of the new bruises Elodie would collect on her journey east. But as far as real hugs went…

Nobody had held her flush against themselves since she’d hugged Cullen back at Haven, and even then he had been hesitant. It had been months since someone had held her close as if they wanted nothing more than to keep her safe. She should have asked him for one before she left, just in case-

“Elodie,” Cassandra said firmly, drawing her eyes up with her tone. “Come. You’re going to sleep with me tonight. The Iron Bull,” she turned, addressing the ever-shirtless Qunari as he hefted a barrel of provisions over one shoulder. He turned to look at her with his good eye. “You'll take first watch.”

“You got it, Seeker,” he grunted, moving over to where some scouts were digging lines for traps beyond the trees.

“Where is he going with that barrel of salted pork?” Elodie asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Perhaps he is off to find a dragon who will fry it for him,” Cassandra shrugged. “Who knows. Let’s go, else you risk getting sick on top of not being able to sleep.”

Elodie followed, too tired to argue.

Cassandra’s tent was mostly empty, save for her bedroll and a few lamps set in the corner by a scout. Motioning for her to come in, Cassandra began to set up the room.

In a daze, Elodie stood dripping by the door until the room was aglow with oil lamps and had a trunk set up as a makeshift table for them to dry and oil their metal armor. It was only then that she realized that Cassandra was talking to her.

“I know this may be hard to believe,” the Seeker said gently, “but when I was a little girl, my uncle treated me like a princess.”

“Did he?”

“Maybe princess is the wrong word. That implies gentleness. I was more like... a doll to him. He tried to put me in frilly dresses, put tiny ceramic teacups in my hands, and called me Precious.”

She huffed, her voice low and her accent allowing the disdain for the situation to drip through.

“It irked me more than I could put into words. For a time, I accepted it because I thought that if someone I held in high esteem had such aspirations for me, maybe that was what I should want as well.”

A pause, one where Elodie couldn’t read Cassandra’s expression as she thought of what to say next. She cleared her throat softly, as if trying to force out the next sentence past a lump forming there.

“After my brother died, I realized very clearly that the reason that felt wrong was because it was not who I was. Nor was it who I wanted to be. I realized... that I didn’t want to be something people feel compelled to protect. I wanted to be the one doing the protecting.”

Elodie walked over to where Cassandra was slowly removing her armor and began to do the same, setting each piece gently down on the tarp beside the trunk as she shed it. For a while, the two women undressed in mutually comfortable silence, but Elodie had a feeling that her companion wasn’t done speaking. As Elodie peeled her prowler breastplate up and away from her chest, she could feel Cassandra’s eyes on her ribs. She straightened as quickly as she could, pulling her damp tunic down over the yellowed, healing skin.

“It occurs to me,” Cassandra said, grunting slightly as she pulled a buckle free and slid out of her gauntlet, “that I may have inadvertently done the same to you as my uncle did to me.”

“What do you mean?” Elodie asked, frowning as she unfolded her hardened gurn hide jacket in hopes that it would dry out a bit. Before Cassandra could answer, there was a voice at the tent flap.

“Knock, knock,” Dorian said, waiting for a reply before he opened the flap. Cassandra’s expression hardened, her burgundy stained lip curling slightly in a sneer.

“Yes?” she replied, her tone a curt warning.

“Well if you’re going to be snarky, I won’t warm up your tent for you,” Dorian chided. Cassandra shared a glance with Elodie, whose curls had been plastered in a wet heap around her ears for days. The Seeker sighed.

“Come in.”

“I knew you’d see reason,” Dorian threw back the flap and waltzed in, his staff only a few inches away from the ceiling. “I’ve perfected a little drying spell on our journey so far, and I think it will be of great use to our sopping Inquisitor here.”

“Don’t set me on fire,” Elodie warned, holding out a finger in his direction. She crossed her arms in front of her chest, her skin turning to gooseflesh from the cold. He gave her a smirk and lit a tiny spark of orange in his hand.

The flame was flat and palm-sized, like a Wicked Grace card. Dorian held it up, then ran his hand along his own skin and pulled it away, unburnt, as if to prove to them that it was safe. Elodie held out her arms, tentative, still wondering if it was a mage perk to not get burned by your own flame.

Dorian took her forearm in his hands and ran the orange lick up and down her arm. It felt like being toweled dry by a warm cloth, the moisture wicking away but the heat never growing uncomfortable.

“I’m afraid I won’t be doing a full-body this time around,” Dorian said with a wink, one that forced a disgusted noise from Cassandra behind them. “But I can at the very least dry a few of your layers so that you don’t freeze tonight.”

“Is the weather normally this bad in Crestwood?” Elodie asked, shivering under Dorian’s hands.

“No. It’s strange,” Cassandra replied, a line forming between her brows as she furrowed them in thought. “I don’t recall it ever looking so grim.”

“Here, lift your arms,” Dorian said. Elodie hesitated, but the Tevinter mage merely rolled his eyes. “If you don’t want to be dry, no skin off my nose.”

She lifted her arms, allowing him to pass his hands over her torso without touching her wool tunic. Elodie watched the mage’s perfectly coiffed head dip low as he skimmed his hands over her leather breeches, drying them as well.

The feeling she got when Blackwall gave her things to try to show that he cared was not the same feeling she was getting from Dorian now. Something was different about the way the two men showed her affection.

She recalled how Dorian had spoken to her about them both being outsiders. Maybe he was growing fond of her, or maybe he was seeking out an ally. Either way, Elodie found herself responding to his sweetness more openly than she did the Grey Warden’s.

“Thank you,” Elodie said when he’d finished. “I wish I could do something for you in return, but I’m afraid all I have with me are arrows and hardtack.”

“Neither of which I require. Besides, I should be the one thanking you. The way you handled the rifts on the way here,” he gave her a playful little sneer and held a hand to his chest in a fake-faint. “Exactly as the legends described.”

"I'm glad you were impressed."

Cassandra scoffed in the corner, and Elodie shuffled so as to not bring attention to the tension.

“Damn,” she said appreciatively, stretching in her dry tunic. “This is wonderful. I haven’t felt this good in days.”

“Surprising what having undampened knickers will do for your peace of mind.” Dorian turned to the Seeker, who seemed as if she were trying her best to look neutral and unannoyed at the change in conversation. “How about you, Cassandra? What state would you like your smallclothes in tonight?”

If looks were weapons, Cassandra’s would’ve been hidden daggers slicked with tears of the dead.

“I would prefer to dry without the use of magic, thank you,” Cassandra said, her tone clipped and polite.

“As you wish, my lady. Should you require anymore assistance, I’ll be setting some wards before I retire to my tent. And possibly seeing if The Iron Bull has done away with that barrel of saltpork like he said he would.” He tilted his head to indicate his tent was the one on their right, and then he was gone. Outside, a distant rumble of thunder filled the silence as Cassandra unraveled the sash from around her hips and folded it over the makeshift table.

“Are you…” she started, paused, and sat down on her bedroll with a huff. Elodie mirrored her, stretching out on the one opposite. Cassandra cleared her throat and tried again. “Part of me does not know how to go about this. After the weeks we have spent together, I assume we have a level of… mutual respect for one another.”

“Of course we do. We’re friends,” Elodie said, smiling despite the fatigue weighing her down.

Cassandra seemed to visibly relax at this.

“I’m glad you feel that way as well. Your friendship is important to me.” The Seeker smiled to herself, but then her brow knit together as her gaze focused on their armor drying in the corner. “And yet I feel as if I have done you a disservice. I have put you in clothes that are unlike your own, have called you by a name you do not identify with, and have asked you to be something that you did not expect to become.” Elodie watched as Cassandra looked up and sighed. “Should you have refused, I would have led the Inquisition in your stead, or found someone who would try to do right by everyone. But I firmly believe that nobody is better suited for it than you are.”

“So what’s the problem?” Elodie asked.

“I… feel as if my actions have caused you stress,” Cassandra bit out. “After Therinfal Redoubt, and then after Haven-”

“Not at all. You’ve been an amazing support, in the small moments as well as the large,” Elodie protested.

“What small moments have we had lately?” Cassandra asked, a bit glibly.

“You never questioned me sleeping outside of my tent, for one. And you always allow me time to let off steam on missions.”

“I was happy to see you getting more practice in with Bull, honestly,” Cassandra said, straightfaced. “You need it.”

Elodie blinked twice as Cassandra's lip curled slightly in amusement.

“Oh. You’re joking,” Elodie said, then chuckled in relief. Cassandra smiled, catlike in her smudged eyeliner, and Elodie beamed at the unexpected snark.

“In all seriousness, though… I apologize, Elodie,” Cassandra said, her voice barely audible. “I pushed the Inquisitor title onto you so soon after Haven, I worry that you will resent it. I am sorry.”

It was her name that struck Elodie, the way Cassandra said it as if it were an heirloom she was afraid to break. She interlocked her fingers together and pulled her knees up to her chest, looking over at the Seeker.

“Me too,” she answered. Cassandra glanced up with an eyebrow quirked. “I haven’t been a very good friend to you lately. Before Haven, we'd explore and have time to chat, to relax in a way. But lately, we’ve hardly had any talks that don’t center around dark things or battleplans." She paused, shrugging her shoulders. "I’ve been in my head, when really I should be the example, shouldn’t I?”

Cassandra didn’t answer.

“I don’t want another Haven,” Elodie confessed. “I don’t feel right leaving Skyhold behind, even if it’s for a good cause. It’s been weighing on me since we left. I already want to go back.”

“Nonsense. You left capable forces there to defend it,” Cassandra said immediately, ever the pragmatist. “You also have those you trust implicitly who did not accompany us, and you have the Templars that you yourself allied with. Plus, you have your advisors.”

“Josephine worried when she saw some bruises,” Elodie protested. “What if something happens to her while I’m away? Do you really think she would be able to defend herself?”

“We all worry for you, in our own ways, and it is not a sign of _your_ weakness,” Cassandra leveled her gaze with Elodie’s, her tone serious. “Nor ours.”

Elodie paused, feeling an immediate and immature desire to detail the ways in which her worry was more justifiable. But that led to an insurgence of guilt. Josephine had led refugees from Haven through the tunnels, had reacted quickly and immediately. She was a force to be reckoned with, even if it was through tact and diplomacy. Just because someone was sweet or polite did not mean they were not strong.

Elodie nodded.

“Right. You’re right,” Elodie said, giving a little exhale as she glanced down to the floor. “My father used to say the same thing about me. I’ve never really known how to deal with someone who shows concern for me.”

“I remember the first time you awoke from a nightmare around me, yes,” Cassandra said, her cat-like eyes slanting in a smile.

“Oh yes,” Elodie grinned. “That.”

“People care in different ways,” Cassandra offered up. “It can be daunting to accept it, but it is necessary if you care for them as well.”

For some reason, the phrase took her by surprise. Without warning, the imagine of Cullen wringing his hands before her flashed before her mind's eye. Unlike the visions that worried her at Skyhold, Elodie didn't want this one to recede. She swallowed hard, nodding to herself.

“I do accept that. I also want everyone to trust that I’ll do a good job without them having to stress out.”

“I think our naming you Inquisitor would have bolstered the fact that we _do_ trust you to do a good job,” Cassandra said.

Her tone was that of a rebuke, but Elodie was still grateful for the reality check. She nodded, moving her chin forward to rest on her knees as she looked across the tent at her friend. Cassandra softened a bit, her gaze mellowing.

“You remind me of Cullen sometimes, you know,” she muttered.

“Ah,” Elodie felt her chest clench at his name. She knew Cassandra couldn't see in her mind, knew that the Seeker had no way of knowing what Elodie wanted from the Commander. Still, it was difficult to stutter out any thing beyond a weak, “D-do I?”

“Yes.” Cassandra looked away, frowning. “He doubts himself as well, even though he is a capable person. But he will not let anyone do a job _for_ him."

"He delegates tasks all the time-"

"Delegation is a form of doing, and he orchestrates troop movements with a very precise manner. It is why I asked him to join the Inquisition in the first place."

"I see."

"Cullen, however, is his own harshest critic. He can sometimes get so immersed in solving a problem or completing a task that he forgets to take care of himself. You are not at his level of self-sacrifice yet, Elodie, but… I admit, I worry for you.”

They were quiet a moment, and Elodie could feel a chill spreading over her skin despite her dry clothes. Cassandra was mulling over something she seemed unwilling to share aloud, or was unable to share at the moment, and it made the air tense and raw between them. Elodie felt herself resetting her neutral mask in place.

“You seem quite fond of him,” she commented.

Cassandra looked back at her slowly, her eyes narrowed.

"Of Cullen?"

"Yes." Elodie could not meet her friend's gaze. Anxiety over some feelings she might be encroaching upon had her stomach doing flips. Luckily, Cassandra spoke for them both.

“Cullen and I are friends,” she said carefully, “just as you and I are friends.”

“Nothing more?” Elodie blurted before she could help herself.

“No."

"Do you want there to be?"

"No. Why do you ask?” Cassandra demanded, her tone sharp.

Elodie immediately flushed pink.

“No reason,” she balked, trying to backtrack. "I thought you just seemed to really like him, and he obviously really respects you, and you seem to talk to him pretty often and-"

She tried to look away from Cassandra, from the Seeker’s immediate jaw drop, but her cheeks grew warm regardless. Elodie bit her lip to keep from saying more, but Cassandra shocked her into with a tiny gasp.

“Oh.”

“What?”

“ _Oh_.”

Elodie could not tell if the noise was a happy one.

“Cassandra-”

“Cullen? You... and Cullen?”

“I… what about Cullen?” she recovered lamely, grimacing even before Cassandra pressed past her question.

“Elodie, you _like_ him. How did I not see it before? Andraste preserve us, I’ve been so blind.”

Cassandra’s eyes were starry, her voice breathy. Elodie’s eyes widened and she felt herself backing up in her corner of the tent, the color draining from her face.

“No, wait. It’s not what you think, we haven't ever-”

“It all makes sense!” Cassandra sighed.

Elodie was lost. She hadn’t even admitted it to herself in so many words. She had woken up feeling particularly guilty after having dropped off to sleep with the thought of Cullen beside her.

Even guiltier still were the locked-away fantasies she indulged in away from the camp, blushing to herself as she tried to imagine what Cullen's bare forearms would feel like as she undid his armor for him and cast it aside. Just the merest remembrance of the hidden thoughts had Elodie covering her face with both hands to hide from her friend.

Cassandra made a small noise, then caught herself, clearing her throat. Still, she looked up at Elodie with a delighted, beaming smile.

“Tell me when you knew. I want to hear all about it.”

“I… didn’t really know,” Elodie whispered. She forced herself to drop her hands, then waved off her panic-stricken expression and tried to find cognitive words to explain herself. Cassandra had scooted up slightly on her bedroll and was waiting with such an endearing expression that Elodie found she couldn’t deny her. “He and I have always been able to… enjoy each other’s company.”

Cassandra smiled broadly, and Elodie fought to ignore her.

“We've always had nice talks, ever since I got back from Therinfal. He has bad dreams too, and he talked to me about mine.”

Cassandra bit her lower lip, looking like she was trying not to say anything. Elodie sighed, grinning a bit herself.

“I probably have you to thank for that, don’t I?”

“This was not my intention in encouraging him to reach out to you,” Cassandra said. “But I do not disapprove.”

“I’m glad you said something. Before Therinfal he was a good enough colleague,” she had to clear her throat past a lump of nervousness at broaching this subject aloud.

"But?" Cassandra prompted.

“But... after I got back from allying with the Templars… something was different. I felt…” Elodie looked down at her rift-marked hand, trying to figure out how to explain it. “Pulled, I guess? Drawn to him. He made me feel like myself again.” She gave a tiny breath, thinking of how natural it felt to be around him. “We looked at the stars together a couple of times-”

“Oh!” Cassandra whispered, interrupting her. “That’s why you… hmmm.”

“No, really though, it’s nothing,” Elodie begged, a hand on her sternum where her heart was pounding. She still hadn’t admitted it, she could still take it back. She could lie, say that it was nothing to worry about, that she didn't think of Cullen every day, that she didn't miss their talks. To put this on Cullen, to talk about it when he wasn’t around… it felt like too much at once.

“It’s romantic,” the Seeker protested. “It reminds me of one of the side stories in my favorite-”

“Cassandra!” Elodie burst, wishing she could laugh at how her friend had to blink to pull out of the dramatic fantasy. Cassandra shut her mouth, and Elodie stuttered, “I haven’t let myself think about it, so talking about it aloud is a bit much for me.”

“Oh. I see.” Cassandra paused, glancing around the tent as if she were giving Elodie time to think about it now. After just a few short moments, unable to wait anymore, Cassandra asked eagerly, “But do you like him?”

“I don’t know,” Elodie lied.

She wanted to tell Cassandra, wanted to explain it all. But where would she start? It was complicated. She was drawn to him, she’d said, and it was true. It was the way he protected her in her dreams; it was the way he gave smooth skipping stones a bit of a toss in his palm before he threw them; it was the way he flustered so easily in the small moments; and it was the way he whispered her name like a benediction.

“I admire him,” Elodie settled on saying, but it didn’t feel right.

Cassandra, to her credit, didn’t seem satisfied either.

“Admiration can take many forms. For instance, I admire Leliana for her ability to lead from afar. I admire Josephine for her tact and patience." She paused, lowering her voice. "And I admire you for your honesty.”

It was a statement, firm and genuine, and the point was not lost on either of them. Elodie sighed.

“I think…” she paused, swallowed hard, then blurted, “I think that I do like him, probably a great deal more than I should, probably more than I've liked someone in a long time. And I also think that this conversation has to stay between you and me for the time being.”

Cassandra nodded as she made a giddy noise, and Elodie again had to hide her own smile in response.

“Does he know how you feel?”

Elodie paused, thinking automatically that Cullen must. He had hinted with her, played with her, seemed to be relaxed around her, and then Elodie was positive that he had been leaning down to kiss her back in Skyhold.

But then again, they had all been uprooted, volatile, and sore after Haven. Herself included. Everyone was trying to get back to their own version of normal as best they could, so parsing out romantic feelings on top of that hadn't been high on her priority list. Most likely it wasn't on Cullen's either.

She couldn’t quite get a read on him, and they hadn’t had a chance to talk. Not a true talk anyway, not like they had back in Haven. Maybe there was a chance, however miniscule, that Cullen didn’t know how Elodie felt.

“Not in so many words. I mean, he should.” She paused, setting her cheek against her forearm despondently. “But… after Haven he seemed distant, so maybe he has no idea.”

“Distant how?” Cassandra asked, her voice low as if she were barely able to contain the curiosity and therefore her volume.

Remembering now, Elodie swallowed audibly.

She had told Cullen things felt different, back when he walked in on her and Josephine having their chat. He’d looked surprised, as if he hadn’t thought that at all. She’d asked him if there was anything she could do to close the distance between them, and _he’d_ apologized to _her_.

In retrospect, maybe that meant that these starlit talks, the mild pull she had towards him, was as far as he wanted it to go. Maybe his husky-voiced reaction to her saying ‘try for me’ was one of curbed annoyance. Maybe he hadn’t been about to kiss her.

Maybe she was overthinking absolutely everything.

After all, it had been Elodie initiating every interaction they had, hadn’t it? It had been by her request that he stay with her, that he meet her again, that he even dance with her someday. He was a gentleman, so of course he didn’t refuse her. She was also in a position of power, his superior of sorts, especially now.

She put her head in her hands, feeling a bit ill.

“He didn’t want to talk anymore after Haven,” she muttered. “When I walked up to him with Dorian, he practically ran off as soon as we spoke. He could smile at Dorian. He could barely look at me.”

“Elodie,” Cassandra whispered, reaching for her, but Elodie shook her head.

"It was better, after. When he had a mission, when he could help others. We had a little... moment?" Elodie shrugged, in conflict with herself. "But we couldn't talk openly where we were in the courtyard."

Cassandra nodded, her energy one of sympathy.

“In some small way, I worry that he must blame me,” Elodie whispered, frowning deeply. “For Haven.”

They had a moment of silence, during which Elodie tried to regain an ounce of control over her emotions. This was why she didn’t bring things like this up. Letting go gained momentum, and then it was harder and harder to stop.

“We lost many good people at Haven,” Cassandra said calmly, reaching out to put her hand on Elodie’s shoulder. “Cullen took it extremely hard. But it was not _you_ he blames. He felt as if _he_ should have been more prepared, and that our men and women were lost because of _his_ decisions. Had you not been there to set an example, we would have continued to blame ourselves until we extinguished ourselves. And Cullen knows that.”

“How could he, when  _I_ don’t even know that,” Elodie said, her voice smaller and weaker than she intended for it to be. She felt her expression tightening, shutting her friend out. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath; she wanted to be open and honest, so why was it this difficult?

“Do you wish to speak of something else?” Cassandra asked, worry streaking through her voice like the flash of lightning outside their tent. Elodie looked up, shaking her head. She wanted to be reassured by someone who knew him, but how could she ask that outright?

“No, it’s okay. I want to get this out. I just… I fear that what I want from Cullen... and what Cullen wants from me... might not line up.”

Saying it out loud hurt worse than the bruises faded from her ribs, and Elodie hugged her arms around herself to try to contain the ache.

“I like you, Elodie. But you are being foolish,” Cassandra scoffed as she scooted closer to Elodie. Once she was sharing the bedroll, Cassandra lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I have seen the way Cullen looks at you across the war table.”

“You have?” Elodie asked. Cassandra nodded, and Elodie tried to conjure up Cullen’s expression. She could not. “How does he look at me?”

“He thinks he’s being subtle, watching your hands as you move figures or take reports from one of the others. If you tell him to do something, he stares at the paper but doesn’t read it until you look away again. When you speak, he stands up straighter, more rigid. I thought it was just Cullen being Cullen, but I think you make him nervous."

"I'm the Herald of Andraste," Elodie said dryly. "I make everyone nervous."

"No, Cullen does not get intimidated by much. Plus, when he is feeling backed into a corner, he sneers like a mabari," Cassandra shook her head. "That look is never one he wears when you are in the room. I think he panics in the small ways that he does because he likes you.”

This was not what Elodie had seen. In her experience, Cullen watched her as if she were a rare animal, like she was something he didn’t want to frighten but couldn’t keep his eyes off of. She had reveled in it before, but now she felt unstable in her pleasure.

A sudden intrusive thought: maybe he only stared at Elodie that way because she was Dalish. She felt a bit sick even giving it mental voice.

But it wasn’t unheard of. Humans had approached her father in Jader, asking about his tattoos, about where else he had ink. She remembered the way they had called her ‘rabbit’, as if it were cute, as if she weren’t a person. And hadn’t Cullen been oddly fascinated with her vallaslin?

“Just because he likes looking at me doesn’t mean he likes _me_ ,” she whispered, feeling a sting of embarrassed sadness pricking at the corner of her eyes.

Cassandra gave an exasperated sigh and looked like she barely held back an eye roll. Elodie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to still her thoughts. Cullen wasn’t like the Orlesians. He was kind, careful, reserved. And hadn’t he also asked her about her scar?

“That is a fair point,” Cassandra said. “However. In your conversations under the stars, does he just look at you? Mouth agape like a Ferelden wolf statue?”

“No,” Elodie said, brow knitting together in consternation at the metaphor.

“Does he speak with you as one would an equal?”

Flushing at the thought of her first name on Cullen’s lips, Elodie could only nod.

“Then he actually likes you for who you are.”

“But,” Elodie shook her head, “how _much_ does he like me? If I’m more fond of him than he is of me, then I’ve made a complete arse of myself!”

Elodie thought to the proximity with which she’d leaned in to touch him back at Skyhold, practically stepping on his toes. She felt heat rise in her cheeks and groaned into both of her hands.

“Believe me,” Cassandra chuckled as she leaned back a bit. “Cullen is not a stupid man. If your talks were in any way crossing a boundary, then he would have caught on by now and said something to you. Directly to you, before you developed feelings for him."

"How do you know?"

"I watched him do this with a Templar back in Haven."

"Ah..." Elodie was taken aback. "Beg pardon?"

"I know for a fact that-" Cassandra narrowed her eyes, her expression growing serious. "This does not leave the tent."

"Right. I promise."

"I know that a young man who fought at Therinfal came with us to Haven, he greatly respected Cullen, and the feeling was mutual. However, when they began to spend more time together, and when the man hinted that he was interested in getting to know Cullen for reasons besides friendship, Cullen told him very gently and very clearly that he was not interested."

"Cullen told you this?"

"Yes, in part. I watched it from afar, I could tell that they were discussing something delicate by the way the Templar assumed a stance of attention after Cullen spoke."

"Was Cullen upset with him?"

"No, not at all. If anything, Cullen was worried that he had breached some sort of decorum by giving the Templar opportunity to develop feelings. He withdrew a bit after that, did not 'fraternize' as much, as he puts it."

"And the Templar?"

"I will not divulge names. He survived Haven, however, and continues to be a close colleague of the Inquisition. To my knowledge, he was never offended at Cullen's rebuke, and they continue to speak civilly and often even now."

"I never knew this," Elodie murmured, wondering at the timeline. Had this happened before or after Cullen and Elodie had begun to grow close?

"It was not my place to tell you, still is not my place even now," Cassandra said, looking a bit disgusted with herself. "But you shared honestly with me, and I want to return the favor to you. Especially if it will help you feel more at ease."

"Thank you."

"And, potential disinterest aside,” Cassandra gave Elodie a knowing smile. “If Cullen did not care for you, he would not have clung to you the way he did after we found you in the snow.”

“What?”

“I thought he was praying over you, but now-”

“He didn’t cling to me,” Elodie retorted, narrowing her eyes in a glare directly at her own fingertips instead of at Cassandra.

“I was there, I saw you pull him-”

“Cass, you're scaring me.”

Elodie shook her head, laughing humorlessly at Cassandra’s stricken expression. She couldn't tell if she was amused or concerned.

“All I know is this: Cullen found me, brought me to you, you took me from him, and then Solas was the one who healed me. That was not a cling, it was a carry, and I don't know what you mean when you say I pulled him.”

Silence. Elodie glanced up at her friend, worried she’d spoken too harshly. Cassandra was frozen, lips parted, eyes wide: she was disbelief personified. It was an overexaggeration of a face Elodie had only seen once before, when Cassandra had caught herself berating Elodie after she’d allied with the Templars.

“You… do not remember?” the Seeker whispered.

Elodie blinked, trying to recall what felt like was already a lifetime ago. She’d stumbled in the snow, succumbing to the cold. She’d felt Cullen scoop her up in his arms. He’d shaken her abruptly, trying to keep her from falling asleep. Then Cassandra had been there to take over, and Solas had hurt her in order to heal her. The feelings that phrase brought up threatened to overwhelm her, so she forced out the only thing she could think of.

“No,” Elodie said quietly. “I suppose I don’t.”

She remembered how Cullen had been after that. Barely making eye contact with her, but smiling at Dorian and the scouts around them in the snow. She’d worried that his eyes would never brighten for her again.

“You should speak with him. Ask him to tell you.”

“Why can’t you just tell me?” Elodie asked, exasperated.

“It is not my place to share,” Cassandra said, her voice rising a bit in pitch. "I do not know what happened. I only know that you reached for him, so I assumed you were awake. And apparently you were not. So just... please ask Cullen."

Elodie narrowed her eyes. Her friend was blushing. Actively blushing. The Seeker fiddled with her braid, and Elodie turned her scrutinizing gaze elsewhere so as not to make her friend even more uncomfortable.

Was it true? Had Cullen really held her longer in his arms, and Elodie just didn’t remember? Elodie struggled to recall. The only thing she could remember was the weird dream she’d had after she’d been partially healed, about water and hands and darkness.

She couldn’t picture anything, but now Elodie had a gnawing curiosity to accompany her sleep-deprived worrying. Maybe this was why she had not tried to say how she felt out loud before now. All of this was complicated.

With a weary sigh, Elodie brought her face down into her hands, hiding from the lamplight and the scrutinizing gaze of her friend.

“I wish I didn’t feel anything,” she mumbled into her palms, and the mark beneath her lips gave a tiny sparkle as if it agreed.

"Do not wish such a thing," Cassandra stated. "I know you are not a mage, but the sentiment-"

"I get it," Elodie said quickly. "I'm sorry."

“Look. You have not spoken to Cullen about any of this, correct?” Cassandra asked, her voice softening.

Elodie could only nod into her hands.

“Then you are making assumptions based off of only half the knowledge necessary.”

“But what if he-”

With a huff, the Seeker grabbed both of Elodie’s hands in hers and drew them down away from her face.

“You said yourself that you like him,” Cassandra said, her eyes glinting in the lamplight in the same way they did before she rushed an opponent. “Is that true?”

Elodie frowned, her hands tightening over Cassandra’s, but she nodded all the same.

She did care for Cullen, very much so. The way he had looked at her when she’d asked him to imagine the stars flashed before her eyes, and Elodie had to take a steadying breath. She didn’t want to lose those small moments with Cullen if she could help it.

"I do," Elodie whispered.

Cassandra smiled and gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.

“Then trust me, Elodie. It will work out.” She shook her head as if in happy disbelief, and Elodie smiled with her. Before Cassandra dropped her hands, she added, "It just has to."


	12. Banishing Illusions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short teaser for what's to come next.

Somewhere bread was baking. Noises were drifting in through an open window, along with a cool autumn breeze. She could smell prophet’s laurel and honeycomb and a crackling fire in a corner somewhere. Laughter, and someone’s fingers in her hair. Elodie opened her eyes slowly, worried the illusion would fall away as soon as she did, but the old tavern stayed in place as she blinked sleep free from her eyes.

“You alright?” a girl asked from behind her.

What was her name? Iman? Imal?

“Imara,” Elodie whispered, her childhood friend’s name ghosting out of her mouth like a wisp of smoke.

“Yeah?”

“I…” Elodie looked around, confused.

She glanced down at herself, in her hunter robes. Fabric, green as the Graves, gripped her hips with a layer of lightweight mail of braided sinew laying overtop of it. Knives at her side, wafting up the smell of oils that signaled she had just cleaned her weapons. Elodie glanced over at a bow lying by the fireplace. Tugs at her scalp signaled that she was getting her hair braided, and she screwed her eyes shut against the twinges of irritating pricks. Her tresses needed to be tightly curtailed during a hunt, otherwise they hung huge and loose about her face.

“Remind me what we’re doing here,” she asked Imara through clenched teeth.

“You going barmy on me?” her friend chided, dark fingers twitching down to scoop the last of the curls up from Elodie’s nape. “Aravel’s getting repaired, Deshanna sent us away to get supplies. We’re waiting on the stew to cook before we head back.”

“Does Father know we’re here?”

“Yours does,” she muttered, teenage angst positively weighing the two words down with stones.

“You really shouldn’t sneak out as much as you do,” Elodie snickered.

“You shouldn’t be as bad an influence as you are,” Imara answered, tying off her braids and then pinning them up high on Elodie’s head. “There. All pretty.”

“Thanks,” Elodie said, tapping at her head to loosen the baby hairs Imara somehow always caught to the point of pain in her braiding. Glancing up at her childhood friend, just as young as she’d always remembered, Elodie felt a pang of loss. There was no reason for it, but it sat in her chest just the same. She frowned, reaching out to touch her friend’s cheek where her vallaslin to Sylaise lay etched bright gold into her brown skin. A scrap of blue caught Elodie’s eye, a blue ribbon she wore around her wrist-

“Elodie?” Imara whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“No wonder,” Elodie’s eyes widened. She knew what memory this was, knew who would walk through that door any minute. “This… isn’t real.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Imara breathed. “I'm real, aren't I?"

“No, please, I can't stay here. I don’t want to remember this,” Elodie whispered, breaking down into tears.

That's right. She'd cried when the door had opened, when the visitor had been revealed, when he'd given her the sad news. The dream, the fade, was mixing up its timing, but that offered little comfort to Elodie in the moment.

When she was young, Elodie had cried so much and so often that it felt almost like returning home to let the sobs catch in her chest. It was so easy to just wallow in this overwhelming sadness.

But something in her fought against them. There was no reason to be so upset, and Elodie was no longer a little girl. She had grown. Over time, she had learned to control her breathing and calm her pulse, and she tried to soothe herself now using those methods. Deep in through the nose, slow out through the mouth. She felt hiccups thumping in her throat. This was harder than she’d thought it would be, but she was making progress.

“You’re supposed to ask who’s at the door,” Imara hinted. “That’s how it happened, remember?”

Just like that, there was a knock outside, as if someone had slumped against the door and was trying to get in. Elodie could feel herself mouthing the words, looking at Imara’s beautiful hazel eyes and wondering why they made her feel so confused. It was as if she couldn't focus anymore, couldn't remember her thought from only a moment ago. This had to be real, right? Imara was her best friend. Had her eyes always been hazel? Hadn't they been green? So why, then, did hazel eyes look so comforting and familiar?

Elodie looked back down at her own hands in her own lap. The ribbon on her wrist was blue, and that meant something to her. She tried to regain the thought process. Solas said it would help her realize something, help her do something.

Solas. She remembered.

“I don’t want to see this,” she said aloud. “I know who’s at the door, I’ve seen this memory a thousand times. This isn’t real.”

What did Solas say to do? Imara, her closest thing to a sibling, the one girl who had beaten back her bullies for calling Elodie names, was in front of her smelling like home. This was the last time Elodie had seen her. Elodie could lose herself to the vision, could relive the memory like the nightmare wanted her to, and it would be so easy. What had Solas told her to do instead?

"You could have included better instructions," she muttered to herself, irritation at Solas and her own ineptitude springing into her words.

“Focus _dahlen_ ,” a voice soothed from the chair to her right.

Elodie jumped to her feet, sending the chair she was sitting in skittering backwards towards where barrels of rations stood in the back of the room.

“Where are you?” she asked, turning to where the voice had come from. “Solas?”

"If it's a dream," Solas reassured her, "then you are stronger than it is."

"How do you know?" Elodie asked the empty air.

“Who’s Solas?” Imara asked.

Elodie looked around, searching for her mentor, keeping one hand on the blue ribbon tied around her wrist.

“I’m asleep right now,” she whispered to herself. “I’m asleep and it’s okay. I can control this.”

“You shouldn’t,” Imara said, the pounding at the door growing wilder and more frantic. Eyes blown wide with fear, she reached for Elodie with one hand as she motioned with the other for her to be quiet.

“I can control this.”

“Stop, Elodie,” Imara breathed, her fingers shaking.

“Or what?” Elodie shouted over the now incessant pounding on the door to the tavern.

She looked around, suddenly aware that there were no other patrons in the room. Behind the counter there was no bartender, there were no maids passing out mugs to customers, and there was no bard singing by the fire. Those had been details she remembered. Now, even the fire began to change and silence itself, glowing softer and taking on a green hue. Elodie looked back into her friend’s horror-stricken eyes and felt the room grow cold.

“I-Imara?”

“You have doomed us all,” she mouthed, tears falling from her molten gold eyes.

A flurry of black and red in the shadows before the veilfire in the hearth snuffed itself out. Imara’s screams were what woke Elodie, but they sounded suspiciously like her own.

* * *

“Do you want to talk?” Cassandra asked, riding into Crestwood after their talk with Warden Stroud. Elodie shook her head, rain dripping from her cowl into her eyes. Her mount made a clicking noise, and she absentmindedly patted the unnamed beast on the base of its neck. Sighing, she looked up at her friends.

Cassandra was shaking misty raindrops from her bangs, and Dorian was not far behind; the mage was pretending not to listen while Bull wore his best neutral face. They had heard her nightmares for the past few nights, but to be fair had not approached her until now. The nightmares had begun to fade the more Elodie glanced down at the ribbon during the worst of them. She was slowly regaining control, even if it wore her out each and every night. She tried to give her companions a stoic look.

“I’m sorry this journey is turning out to be a bit more complicated than we thought it would be. I’ve sent agents for supplies for Crestwood, and I have reports from Leliana to go through at the next dry place we come to. If we can capture the keep, we’ll have a base of operations to rest at, so I vote we start there.”

Bull hummed low in agreement with her.

“Personally, I’ll feel better once we help drain the lake, take care of the rift out there,” Elodie offered. She paused. “Right now I just feel helpless.”

“I imagine the Grey Wardens feel similarly,” Dorian mused. He grunted harshly, and Elodie glanced back in time to see Bull retracting his arm from the vicinity of the mage’s shoulder. The mount beneath her snuffled raindrops into a mist in irritation, shaking its great head back and forth to try to dry itself.

“It’ll be alright,” Elodie said... though whether she was talking to her hart, herself, or her companions she couldn’t say. “We’ll make it alright.”

Her companions nodded, taking up their own reins in their hands and prepping themselves in their saddles. With one last look at them all, Elodie turned her mount towards the green-hued waters and clicked her heels, sending it into a gallop towards the keep and the subsequent means to drain the lake.

* * *

Back at Skyhold, after a traipse through caves that left Elodie feeling drenched to her core in more ways than one, the only thing that she could think of was getting changed into dry clothes. How long had she been gone this time? At least a month.

Riding in through the gate, Elodie looked up expecting to see boulders and beams upended and still laying around waiting to be repaired. However, she instead saw a walkway leading to the battlements. She stared up at it as she rode through, impressed to the point of her mouth parting while she gaped. It was well-crafted. Josephine and Vivienne had been busy.

Whereas before there were holes in the roofs along the structure of the keep, now new shingles glinted in the setting sun. Blueprints lay by the courtyard, the grounds were cleared and groomed, the armory billowed warm smoke that smelled of steel, and the inside of the great hall was no less staggering. Tables had been put into place, and a few visitors were wandering about commenting on the progress of the Inquisition. There were even two armed guards standing by the throne that Elodie passed on the way to remove her armor up in her quarters.

The changes didn't stop there.

She walked in to find a better wardrobe. The beige pajamas were nowhere to be seen, and Elodie went through the new outfits in the dresser with reverent care.

There was a pretty white blouse with gold filigree and pastel geometric cutouts. She liked it, but when she held it up it was incredibly revealing along the breasts and back. She passed on it for now. Maybe some other time, when she wasn't as bruised.

There was also a few new blouses in her size, in a variety of neutral colors, and those appealed to her much more. She set aside a crimson and gold blouse, musing that those were Cullen colors, and she made sure to fold them all back neatly when she was finished perusing them.

The topmost drawer contained smallclothes, and a little note from Leliana that admitted she wanted to do something nice for Elodie's return. Shaking her head at the absurdity albeit usefulness of the gift, Elodie closed the top drawer without looking through. In a different drawer, there were fabrics and belts and vests to layer over her blouses. The bottom drawer contained breeches of all kinds. Elodie smiled, running her hands over the different kinds of leather. They felt wonderful, and she imagined they would all fit her.

Her advisors must have been busy while Elodie was away.

After she’d changed over into a simple blouse, belted vest, and black leather breeches, Elodie went outside to the stables to give her hart a brushing. So many things had gotten fixed in her absence, she marveled that she had ever been worried about Skyhold in the first place. She took her time walking back down.

Glancing around the warmly lit, sweet-smelling hay of the stables, Elodie noticed that Blackwall had carved three new rocking horses of various sizes. She left her hart and walked over to see them more closely. One of them had the name ‘Kannara’ etched into its side. Elodie noted with amusement that it had arrows carved into its saddle, flush against the horse’s side. She was trailing her fingers over it absentmindedly when Blackwall cleared his throat behind her, making her flinch.

“You scared me,” she laughed.

“My apologies,” he chuckled, looking as if her jumpy reaction had bothered him more than it had her. “Although technically you’re in my workshop, so you’d think I would be the jumpy one.”

“I’m sorry. I came here to see how things were going, and got distracted. These are beautiful.”

“They’re just a way to pass the time,” Blackwall said, but Elodie could see his eyes crinkling with a hidden smile. “How about you? Are you feeling alright after your trip?”

“Yes,” she lied, putting on a neutral face. “I was just putting my hart up. Which, thank you again for getting another mount for me, they're always invaluable in the field.”

“He’s a hart, not a recruit,” Blackwall said with a laugh. “Do you have a name for him yet? Sera had a few ideas, but I told her to let you have this one.”

Elodie glanced down at the dirt so that she could have a moment to plaster a kind smile onto her lips.

“She’s a she, not a he,” Elodie said, avoiding the question.

“Oh. I just assumed with the antlers and all,” Blackwall answered, setting his tools down. “Still. Proper lady needs a proper name.”

“Nothing has come to me yet,” Elodie finally admitted. “I figure when I know it, I’ll know.”

“That’s usually the best way to name things."

"Things?"

"Sure. Pets, ships, babies, all the regular things that need names, else it's bad luck,” Blackwall said, his voice gruff but the smile underneath of his beard bringing endearing lines to the corners of his eyes. “Or so I’ve heard, anyway.”

Elodie felt her smile slip into a more genuine expression, and she patted the rocking horse behind her.

“These are for Baelem’s girls?” she asked.

“He saw me carving for fun and commissioned me to do a few toys here and there.” Blackwall ran his gloves hand over his beard, looking a bit unsettled. “There are more children running around here than I’d realized.”

“Do you think they’d like little things like this?” she asked, reaching into her belt pouch to pull out the fox statue that she now carried on her person at all times. Blackwall held a hand out.

“May I?” he asked. She handed it over and he turned it around in his palm once or twice before handing it back. “Might be too small for the smaller ones, but I daresay you could start a collection of these with the ones old enough to be careful with them.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for more,” she said as she tucked the fox back into its home by her lockpicks. “You said there are a few kids?”

“A handful or so.”

“Who looks after them?”

“For the most part, their parents do. Some younger ones were refugees, came here alone, but the Inquisition already has them set up in the tower past the forge.”

“Isn’t that drafty?” Elodie asked, frowning. The nights were getting colder recently.

“We repaired it,” Blackwall said, grinning broadly. “Along with so many other aspects of this dusty old place. Those logging stands and quarries you marked were apparently very fruitful.”

Elodie, impressed beyond words, could only nod her appreciation.

“You should take your time and go look around, Inquisitor,” Blackwall said, picking up a tiny detail chisel and hammer. “Get reaquainted with the place. I’ll see you at dinner, right?”

“There’s a place to eat dinner now?” Elodie murmured. Her Warden companion gave a kind laugh, and her hart in the stable snuffled out an agreeable huff as well. He turned to go, but she stopped him with a hand wave. “Random question, Blackwall.”

“Alright,” he replied, but he still warily shifted his weight as he crossed his arms.

“If you were a drink,” Elodie asked, “what drink would you be?”

“Hmm…” he paused, looking up to the rafters briefly. “I’ve never thought about it. Can I get back to you?”

“Sure,” Elodie shrugged. “It’s not important.”

“Doesn’t have to be important for it to be fun,” Blackwall said gently. He turned back to the rocking horse and Elodie watched as he carefully set his chisel to the saddle and tapped out a tiny filigree on its reins. She left to explore, and to see about the possibility of food before supper.

* * *

As she found out almost immediately, there were now several places to dine. The kitchens within Skyhold had been swept, cleaned, and reorganized. Since there was nobody around, Elodie grabbed a handful of sweets from a jar by the door, popping a few of the caramels in her mouth as she explored.

Delicious smells wafted from the doors as Elodie approached through the back, and then when she burst into the main hall she was delighted to see that on top of decorations and candles in the center of the tables, there were also places to hang banners on the walls. It was as if they were waiting on her whim, waiting to see how she carved it to suit her. She finished the rest of her candy and raced to the undercroft, where she knew all of Skyhold’s blueprints were kept.

She decided on Dalish banners, naturally. They were pretty, an archer heraldic symbol crossing over the faded green cloth. She also chose to keep the throne simple, which was a timely decision. Elodie was asked immediately upon entering Skyhold to pass her first judgment on an Avvar prisoner. Josephine walked her through it, a favor Elodie was extremely grateful for. The idea of a goat being thrown at Skyhold was very difficult not to laugh outright at, but both women kept it together. After that, when the sun had set, Elodie went wandering to see if the gardens had been improved as well while she waited for dinner to be served.

Voices drew her attention to a corner of the underplanted garden as soon as she walked out. Under a gazebo that had been the site of debri the last time she’d seen it, a dark chuckle rang out.

“You promised me a quick game, Cullen. Are you drawing things out just to toy with me, or do you really not know what you’re doing?”

“You talk an awful lot for someone who’s two moves away from losing and can’t see it yet.”

“Are you sassing me, Commander? Didn’t know you had it in you.”

Elodie walked up slowly, not wanting to interrupt. Her heart was pounding in her chest, eagerness vibrating through her spine and drawing her up straighter.

Sitting underneath of the gazebo, lit only by the surrounding torches that servants had cast into flame with the sunset, was Cullen. Across from him, looking way too smug for his own good, was Dorian. Cullen glanced up, seeing her first, and his expression reminded her of the talk she’d just had with Cassandra.

_When you speak, he stands straighter. Rigid._

Blinking, as if he realized that he and Elodie had just been watching one another for the last heartbeat or two, Cullen stood up abruptly from his chair and gave her a bit of a bow.

“E- Inquisitor,” he said softly, but he didn't sit back down immediately.

Dorian leaned back in his chair so that he could also see Elodie and she crossed her arms over her blouse.

“Leaving are you?” the mage asked as he turned to Cullen. “Does this mean I win?”

Cullen settled back down into his chair a bit reluctantly, a competitive glower set on his face. Elodie moved over to the table so that she could see if Cullen was bluffing or not with his two moves quip. Keeping her face neutral, her eyes flicked over the board as she tried to recall strategies her father had shown her years ago.

“You look well,” Cullen said to her, ignoring the man still seated across from him.

“Thank you. It feels nice to be out of my mail for once,” she joked.

“Well is an understatement,” Dorian echoed. “I like that color on you. Charcoal brings out the green in your eyes.”

“Flirt,” Elodie accused good-naturedly. Instead of denying it, Dorian turned back and made a facial expression at the Commander that Elodie couldn’t see. Cullen looked to her, eyes bright, and she held out her hand. “Please, don’t stop on my account.”

“Nervous?” Dorian asked, picking up a piece and moving it with a satisfying clack against the board. “You need to come to terms with my inevitable victory. You’ll feel much better.”

“Really? Because I just won,” Cullen said, moving his piece and leaning back in his chair. “And I feel fine.”

Dorian glanced down, for a moment too shocked for words. He recovered quickly as Elodie covered her smile with her hand.

“Don’t get smug,” Dorian warned Cullen, pushing his chair out from the table to leave. “There’ll be no living with you.”

Cullen couldn’t contain his smile, and Elodie wished she could stop mooning at him from where she stood. At least the night was darkening fast around them, hiding her flushed skin in shadow. She grabbed a lock of hair that had fallen in front of her forehead and tucked it back behind her ear. Dorian moved past her, giving her a reassuring touch on the shoulder.

“I’m going to see about securing some of that Antivan wine that Josephine keeps hinting we have stockpiled away for special occasions.”

“What’s the occasion?” Elodie asked as he walked along the path to the door.

“Well it’s not every day I lose to a handsome Templar,” Dorian purred.

“Former Templar,” Cullen corrected, his good mood evident in the lightness of his voice even as it carried across the gardens.

“Ah, but you didn’t argue the handsome part,” Dorian replied, and the slam of a door cut off any retort Cullen could have shot back with.

“I should return to my duties as well,” the Commander said, glancing down as a blush tinted the back of his neck. He glanced up at her, eyes aglow with the light from the torches interspersed along the garden’s outer edge. “Unless you would care for a game?”

Elodie paused, immediately self-conscious about what she did and didn’t remember of the game. It had been years.

“Forgive me,” Cullen said quietly. “I imagine you’ve had a long journey, if what Dorian was telling me is correct. You only just arrived a few hours ago, right?”

“Yes,” Elodie replied, snapping out of her daze. “But I still want to play.”

“Really?” He sat a bit straighter, and Elodie raised her jaw in a challenge.

“Prepare the board, Commander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like the idea that Cullen and Dorian are friends. A headcanon of mine is that one of the reasons Cullen is constantly glancing over his bookshelf when you enter his office area in the game would be because Dorian has challenged him to essentially a weekly trade. They read recommendations by the other, and then discuss their opinions over chess. This was what they were doing when Elodie walked into the famous chess scene.
> 
> I like the idea that Cullen is a well-rounded individual with independent friendships, just like Elodie.


	13. A Poor Liar

Cullen seemed delighted that Elodie had accepted the invitation. He smiled as he readied everything, replacing lost pawns and rooks, moving everything with a delicate ease that Elodie decided should not be possible in thick leather gloves. She moved to sit across from him, watching his knee bounce a little as he settled back into his chair.

“As a child, I would play this with my sister. She would get this stuck-up grin whenever she won, which was all the time,” Cullen said eagerly. “My brother and I practiced for weeks.” He chuckled to himself. “The look on her face the day I finally won…”

He got quiet, his smile falling away. Elodie tilted her head, watching him mull over whatever had distracted him from the memory.

“Between serving the Templars and the Inquisition, I haven’t seen them in years," Cullen confessed. "I wonder if she still plays.”

He sat back, watching the board. Elodie debated probing him. She wondered if he was talking as a means to open up, or merely voicing a thought aloud that was only meant for himself. Unable to resist, as she so often found herself in Cullen's presence, she decided to see if he'd open further for her.

“You have siblings?” Elodie asked, moving one of her pawns forward.

Cullen was hard to read, or at least that was what she told herself as he caught her staring at him instead of the board.

“Yes," he answered, a grin in his voice. "Two sisters, and a brother.”

“Where are they now?”

“They moved to South Reach after the blight.”

“Do you write to them often?”

“Not like I should,” Cullen said with more than a hint of guilt. “Or hardly at all, really.” He looked down at the board. “Do you have any siblings?”

“No, only child I’m afraid.”

“Sounds peaceful,” he said.

“Sometimes. I was a bit of a loudmouth, so things were never peaceful for very long.”

“I could see that,” Cullen replied with a smirk. He looked down at the board before she could answer. “Ah. It’s my turn.”

“If I had siblings, I think I should like very much to talk with them,” Elodie said as she glanced down at the board for a minute, deciding her next move. It had been a while, and she was rusty. “It must be interesting to become an adult alongside someone who knew you during your formative years.”

“Interesting, or embarrassing,” Cullen chuckled. “It would depend on the day, I'd assume.”

“You…”

That’s right. Cullen hadn’t grown up with his siblings at his side past thirteen years old. She’d forgotten how young he’d been when he'd left them in order to begin Templar training. In a daze, she set her chess piece down where it had been hovering.

He made a small noise in his throat at her move, as if he had been about to protest it and held himself back.

“I don’t want you going easy on me, Commander,” Elodie chided gently, and she looked up just in time to see his eyes narrow. She faltered, feeling like she was digging too much, like she was _being_ too much, and Cassandra’s words resurfaced once more.

_You are making assumptions._

She hadn’t told Cullen how she felt. She had also not asked how _he_ felt. It was all conjecture, and it would drive her mad if she let it. Instead of withdrawing with her confusion, she held his gaze as steadily as she could.

“I want you to earn your victory,” Elodie teased. Looking back down at the board, she mumbled sneakily, “Plus, I don’t actually think you can win.”

He surprised her by laughing, a low, pleasant sound that made her feel too sensitive all over. His voice was a combination of smooth liquor and sweet syrup.

“I enjoy a challenge,” he replied.

“Speaking of which,” Elodie said hastily, trying not to sound as if she were desperately searching for something else to occupy her mind besides the thought of Cullen looming over her in the dark, a victorious smirk painted on his scarred lips, close enough to pull down and- “I was always decent at chess, but absolutely shit at Wicked Grace.”

“Were you, now?” Cullen asked, moving his piece closer to hers, almost close enough to claim. She could see that it was a distraction, though, as he was anticipating her lining up her bishop with his knight. “You seem to be good at bluffing so far.”

“Ha,” Elodie smirked, moving a different pawn and forcing Cullen to resituate his bishop to her liking. “I’m not an excellent strategist, but I’m an even worse liar.”

“I would be tempted to agree,” he admitted. She quirked an eyebrow at him and wondered if she’d ever tried to lie and he’d seen through her. His mouth dropped open and he immediately backtracked. “Not that you’ve lied to me, or anyone, that I know of.”

She stayed quiet, and it seemed to only fluster him further.

“I just meant that you’re straightforward. Disarmingly so.”

“Straightforward, eh?”

“Yes,” Cullen settled, and his exhale was one of relief that this part of the conversation could be over now.

“Is that a good thing, or a bad thing to you?” she asked, eyes sharp.

“I think it’s good,” he answered, and he tilted his head with a tiny smile. “It would be even better if I won, but either way it’s good.”

“Well, if you end up feeling sore about me disarming you, so to speak,” she teased, “then I daresay you could get back at me by inviting me to play a round of cards with you.”

“You sound like a hustler,” he chuckled. “Completely unbelievable.”

“Hey!” Elodie protested. She tried to keep a straight face and failed spectacularly.

“It sounds like you just want to beat me at as many games as possible.”

“I was told by a reliable source that I am a very straightforward person.”

“A very straightforward hustler.”

“Commander,” she tutted impishly. “You wound me.”

“Oh dear,” he growled. “Then you are not going to like what I do next.”

“I doubt you could do something I dislike,” she purred, sliding a pawn forward.

He proceeded to take two of her pawns and lured her knight out into the open. She stared at the board, wondering how he’d trapped her.

She was so rusty.

“I think… that I need to practice,” Elodie mumbled from behind her halla-leather glove as she contemplated her next move more carefully. Cullen laughed.

“Do you have any time on the road to practice? I daresay they make travel sized chess boards. My brother had one, if I recall.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Elodie said, looking up and winking at him. “I can get my arse handed to me by a rage demon, and then again by a competent chess opponent!”

“Everyone needs a good trouncing now and again,” Cullen teased. Elodie laughed out loud, especially when she looked up and saw him smiling coyly at her.

“I’ve had my fair share of losses for a bit, I think.”

“Ah. I take it that the journey to Crestwood was a difficult one, then?”

Elodie was tempted to say that she was fine, as she’d been repeating to a concerned party of friends for half their journey back, but could not utter the word to her Commander.

“It was not great. We got a lot done, but it was just kind of…” she paused, then said lamely, “sad.”

“It sounded like it.” Cullen moved a piece. “Varric gave me a very brief rundown summary of your correspondence, while we’re on the subject of completely unbelievable Wicked Grace players."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He summarized your conversation with Hawke. I could tell by the way he was imitating Cassandra's reactions that he wished he could have been there.”

He smiled, but Elodie couldn’t muster up anything besides a small sigh. Cullen’s jaw clenched and his smile fell away.

“This... conversation seems to be a bit on the dire side, doesn’t it?” he muttered.

“I’m sorry.”

“N-no,” he stammered, and he almost knocked over his king in his haste to wave a hand at her apology. Elodie watched it wobble on the board as Cullen added firmly, “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I should have just said the journey was fine and been done with it.”

“See,” Cullen said. “This is why you’re bad at Wicked Grace.”

Elodie narrowed her eyes, confused.

“You’re not a liar, nor would I want you to be for my sake,” Cullen said gently. “I asked about the journey because I care how it was, good or bad. I care about-” he cut himself off and cleared his throat. “I care about all of your missions. It’s my job.”

“Mmm, you must be even busier than I am,” Elodie said, contemplating the board as she struggled to quell the slight guilt she felt at his statement. Here she was, wasting his time when he could be working. “Should we switch to discussing my reports?”

“Maker, no,” Cullen groaned. “I have enough of them waiting on my desk once this is over. Which isn't to say that that's a bad thing!"

He stopped, and Elodie raised her eyes to his in confusion.

"Listen, I’m not doing this well.” Cullen took in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. “I just meant that,” he finally moved a bishop slightly back, taking his time with both his words and his chess moves. “While I do enjoy my time with you when we’re both working-”

“As do I,” she affirmed.

Cullen's lips parted, as if he'd just been caught by surprise. He regained his focus in a millisecond, and had Elodie not been looking at him to help her clue into his mood, she would have missed the tiny expression before he continued.

“Good. I mean, I know that sometimes we have our differences in strategy, but I respect you and your decisions. And beyond that, I’ve often thought of chats like this, when it’s just… us being us,” he clarified, or tried to.

Elodie smiled to herself, and he gestured that it was her turn to move.

"As do I," she repeated, softer this time.

Cullen seemed to be still struggling with the statement, and his gaze fell away from hers.

“So besides the trip, how are you?”

“Could be better,” she said, giving a mirthless laugh. “I’m having bad dreams again, but I’m sure it’s nothing that a bath and sleeping in dry clothes won’t fix.”

“I hope that’s true.”

A pause, a faint tap of a heavy chess piece on the board. Cullen spoke again, his voice tentative.

“Am I still showing up in your nightmares?” he asked, and Elodie glanced up with a start.

He was watching the board, but he flicked his eyes up to hers when he realized she was staring at him. Through his lashes, his hazel irises looked positively aglow.

Against her better judgment, Elodie glanced down at his lips, seeking his scar. She wondered abstractly if he would let her sweep the chess board and climb across the table to see how that scar tasted. Would he run from her? Stop her? Or maybe drag her to himself with just as much desperation?

Embarrassed by thoughts that he couldn’t possibly know, Elodie gave a nervous laugh. She blamed the lack of sleep (and Cassandra’s vehement approval) as she struggled to steer her thoughts away from such lewd imagery.

“No. If you were, then I’m sure it would be an entirely different kind of dream,” Elodie mumbled, moving her piece and enclosing his bishop in her palm. “Your turn.”

“I, ah,” he faltered, seeming to lose his place on the board for a moment.

Elodie bit her lip at the way he was bringing his hand up to his cheek, at the way he absently dragged his palm to the back of his neck as he thought.

“The dreams are nothing to worry about,” Elodie said as a way to put his mind to rest on the subject.

He looked up, like he didn’t believe her.

“I promise,” she added. “They’re just standard nightmares. Solas reassured me of it.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. He’s been listening, giving advice here and there. He gave me this to help,” Elodie held up her wrist, showing the purple ribbon.

“He did, did he?” Cullen asked. His question contained not a drop of surprise, as if it made perfect sense that Solas would be helping her.

However, Elodie got a sense that she had made a misstep in their dance.

“Have you talked to him since you returned to Skyhold?” Cullen asked, his voice guarded.

“No, not yet,” she replied, watching his fingers roll her pawn into his hand as he placed his down in its stead. “Why?”

“No reason,” Cullen shrugged slightly, leaning away from the board once more. “Just wondering how he’s been advising you.”

“I didn’t tell him that I dream about you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she moved into position, hoping that he would chase her backwards.

“I wouldn’t mind it if you did,” he retorted, following just as she’d hoped he would.

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked, setting out her knight as bait.

“You’re still having nightmares,” Cullen said, his tone acidic. “Doesn’t sound like his advice is working.”

He took her knight, rising to each occasion she presented him with.

“Are you that concerned about my sleep, or lack thereof?” she pried, glancing up to see if her teasing was going too far. Half of her was frustrated he’d brought it up in the first place, but the other half yearned to share with him all of the memories she’d been reliving the last week. She couldn’t decide whether he looked concentrated on the game or flustered at her questions.

He took her other knight.

“We’ve had many conversations on the subject. You should know how I feel about it.”

“We seem to have a lot of conversations like that, don’t we?” she said bitterly. “What we _should_ know and what we _do_ know are sometimes completely different.”

Quiet. She could hear the soft whisper of grasshopper wings in the long grass, of people moving far in the background. The garden itself seemed to speak to them as a breeze floated past the gazebo, carrying the scent of sweet crushed flowers over to Elodie from where the Commander sat. She closed her eyes against it, pained by the amount of effort it took to keep her eyes off of him.

“Elodie,” Cullen said carefully, trying his best to catch her eye across the board.

She looked up at him reluctantly. She felt painted into a corner, defensive, and didn’t much care for it. But when she looked at him, the turbulence started to even out.

He was worried, she could tell by the way his eyes stayed wide and his mouth was drawn into a small, tight line. His hands were unmoving on the arms of his chair, his knee bouncing slightly as he grit his teeth. He was searching for the right words to say, Elodie realized, and so she waited.

He started to speak, cut himself off, and finally bit out, “Are we still talking about the dreams… or about something else? I’m trying to keep up, but I find myself lost.”

“It’s…” Elodie frowned.

She wanted to tell him now, but the fear she’d expressed to Cassandra earlier resurfaced. It clawed away her courage, and she shook her head.

“I apologize. It’s probably something we should discuss later. I don’t want to ruin our game,” she said, reaching out to rush him on the board with a well-placed pawn. It was a miscalculation on her part, and he took another of her pawns in two moves she hadn’t foreseen. “Damn. I thought I had you,” she mumbled.

“Don’t give up just yet,” he replied, his voice quietly encouraging.

“Are we talking about the game, or about something else?” she asked, eyes darting up to gauge his reaction.

She half-expected him to cut off the direction of the conversation, but the expression he wore was relatively at ease. He was being open with her, she realized, as open as he could be with her saying they were to discuss things later. Even as she sat there, pacing around the perimeter of the subject, Elodie felt herself mollifying just at the sight of him.

His armor glinted like liquid reflecting the light from the flames that surrounded them, and a few strands of blonde hair had fallen in front of his forehead, like he’d been running his fingers along his scalp just moments ago. His gaze was too intense for Elodie to maintain eye contact with, but she was surprisingly not the one to break it. He glanced away when she kept his stare; a muscle in his jaw twitched once, twice, and Elodie wondered if he thought that her eyes were the beautiful ones.

Captivating, not beautiful. That had been his word of choice back at Haven all those weeks ago.

“Did… you have nightmares as a child?” Cullen asked, breaking Elodie's daydreaming.

He resituated himself in the chair so that he was leaning forward more. Was he blushing, or was it a trick of the torchlight? He seemed to be looking to pick up their conversational pieces, to get back to where they had been before she’d begun her verbal circling.

“I did, a bit.” She slid a pawn up, a space saver. “The woods were scary sometimes, and I didn’t like the dark. I think that’s why I became a hunter.”

“You wanted to face your fears?”

“I wanted to protect the people I loved,” Elodie replied, her voice sarcastic.

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you regret it,” he remarked dryly. “I think it’s a noble sentiment.”

“It might have been, had I been able to actually do it,” she replied, looking up at Cullen with hooded eyes. He frowned, his hand hovering over the board. She gave a small sigh. “When my father passed away, I wasn’t around to help him. The woods were less scary after that.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, setting his game piece down without having moved it. "I know how difficult losing a parent can be."

Neither had words to immediately follow such an admission. In the quiet, Elodie marveled at how hard it had been to divulge details of herself to Cassandra, a woman she considered one of her closest friends in the Inquisition. Talking about herself, opening up, had taken months.

When Elodie was around Cullen, however, talking about herself was too easy; who knew what she would dive into next? Elodie knew that she should stop sharing, stop talking this instant, and yet she just kept opening her mouth.

“No, I’m sorry to bring it up like that. It happened a long time ago.” She reached out and tapped his rook with her index finger. “You were going to move this. Did you change your mind?”

“I- ah, no, I did not,” he said, looking at the board with fresh eyes. She smiled wanly as she watched him analyze and try to guess where she was going to go next. He didn’t want to admit it, but the rook was his best option.

“Tell me about your siblings while you think,” she suggested, and he looked up at her with a bit of a squint.

“You’d like my sister,” Cullen said immediately, and Elodie gave a little giggle.

“How do you know?”

“You’re both extremely caring, for one.”

“Is that all?” she asked after he fell quiet. She was genuinely curious, but he scoffed good-naturedly at her prying.

“Not satisfied with just one compliment, are we? I see Dorian's influenced you these last few weeks.”

“If you only have the one, I’ll take it,” she said as she conceded another of her pawns.

“You and my sister are also both people I can talk to easily.” He glanced up at her burst of laughter. “Why is that funny?”

Elodie struggled to quell her anxious giggle and breathed in deeply.

“I’m sorry, but… really?”

“You don’t believe me?” Cullen scoffed. "What are we doing now, if not talking?"

“No, I meant no offense," Elodie tried to hide her smile. "It’s just that I feel like I’m always poking at you,” she confessed. “Even now, I asked you to bestow me with more compliments, instead of letting you steer the conversation.”

“I like when you steer the conversation,” Cullen said, eyes sparkling with mirth. “I may tease you about your questions, but I don’t feel like you’re difficult to speak with. I’m just…” he shrugged, as if he couldn’t figure out how to quite say what he wanted. “Out of practice,” he finally settled on.

“Luckily for you, I am as well,” Elodie said, gesturing to the board. "Incidentally, I would appreciate it if you stopped taking my pawns, Commander.”

“No such luck, Inquisitor. And I have to say, although Mia tried twice as hard to badger me for information, she never managed to get as much out of me as you have in so little time,” he said, smirking as he moved his queen just slightly. “You both care enough to ask hard questions, and you’re both brave enough to show your feelings openly. I respect that about you.”

“So, does this mean I’m like a sister to you?” Elodie joked, prying a bit further.

Cullen looked up, the shock on his face giving her a resolute, wordless answer. Her laughter rang like bells across the garden, and Cullen reddened as he shook his head vigorously. Elodie wondered if he was trying to shake his head free of the imagery.

“Andraste preserve us, no.”

“And why not?” she goaded.

“You’re much less of a know-it-all, for one. And for two, you’ve never once teased me about my curls.”

“I’m rather fond of your curls,” Elodie said, caught up in the moment.

She heard his slight puff of breath, Cullen's surprise barely audible but there all the same. He still backed her into a corner on the board, ruthless even as he grinned up at her like a schoolboy.

“Your move.”

“Am I like an acquaintance, then?” she asked as she tapped a pawn over. He gave a tiny groan.

“Must you move there?”

“I took my hand off of it, it stays there.” Elodie tilted her head, taunting him. “Answer the question.”

“You’re more than an acquaintance, I should think. Especially since you and I have worked together for so long.”

“I see…” she watched as he moved a pawn up as well, trying to get her to shift. She flicked her gaze up, wondering when the night had gotten so dark around them and how Cullen still managed to glow like that. “So does that mean I’m like an ally? Or an associate?”

“You’re more like a formidable enemy at the moment,” Cullen said with a twist of his lips. “I might take you up on that Wicked Grace suggestion later, see if you’re as bad as you say.”

“I had a handsome former Templar once tell me I was a hustler, so you should tread carefully.”

He chuckled as she retreated her knight, and she was certain he would concentrate his efforts on getting closer to her if given opportunity. He narrowed his eyes up at her and she refused to look away. It was almost as if he were trying to divine what she was thinking based on her expression. A thought occurred, unbidden.

Elodie imagined moving around the table until she could curl in Cullen's lap, folding herself into his arms and nuzzling into the warmth of his fur-lined cloak. Despite the armor, she knew that she would be able to get comfortable. Such a position would also give her incredible ease of access to his throat and jaw. Elodie wondered if his stubble would feel soft or coarse under her tongue, and whether or not he would still have the glass trinket she’d handed him at Haven hidden somewhere under his clothes.

She gave Cullen the slightest smile and an inclination of her head, and she wondered what he would do if he could see the imagery she’d conjured up for them in her mind. He took his lower lip in between his teeth, directing his gaze to the board between them, and Elodie had to suppress a shiver.

What if he was thinking the same thing at this moment?

He took her other rook and glanced up at her victoriously.

“Check,” he gloated.

“What am I to you, Cullen?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

His expression turned from triumph to something more vulnerable, and he looked away before Elodie could get a read on it. She blinked hard down at the board and tried to concentrate on it instead of what she’d just blurted. She moved, and he immediately reached out to counter-move, barely waiting before she had finished her play to move his own piece.

“Check.”

“I think you and I have a lot of things to discuss,” she whispered, not what she’d intended to say aloud at all. It surprised her so much that she stared at the board, frozen and not sure what to do next. It held the potential of coldness, but to Elodie's ears her own voice just sounded meek and confused.

“Are we not discussing things now?” Cullen asked carefully, his tone unsure.

He was trying to keep up with their verbal dance, she could tell, and yet she still couldn’t look at him and say her portion outright. The steps were slowing, the melody fading, and she needed to say something. She wanted to, Maker, she wanted to… but _what_?

“Elodie-” Cullen started to say, and in her panic she accidentally cut him off.

“We should spend more time together,” she said in a rush, reaching across the board and sacrificing her bishop. She looked up, hoping against hope that he could tell what she meant. She couldn’t say more out loud, wasn’t sure how to.

Her cheeks were red, she would bet money on it. She felt too warm in her long-sleeve blouse, and she wished that the night would bless her with a cold breeze to take away the heat streaking through her veins. She must look a mess, even though she’d changed her clothes, and Elodie cursed that she hadn’t taken time to go bathe before stepping out into the gardens tonight. She resisted the urge to comb her fingers through her hair and simply waited.

Cullen was watching the board, his expression one of concentration but decidedly not in regards to the game. Elodie tried to recall what Cassandra had said. When he looked at her, he smiled with his eyes.

“Cullen?” she whispered, and when he looked up she caught his gaze. Elodie only had to blink at him and he immediately softened his expression. Maker, he was handsome, and so responsive. He looked down at the board shyly, as if glad he’d been caught.

“I’d… like that.”

“Me too,” she answered immediately, her voice eager.

She wanted to tell him how beautiful he looked in this moment, what with that tiny smile still boasting his pleasure at her statement. But instead of speaking, for once she held her tongue and simply moved her next piece.

“You said that,” Cullen murmured.

Elodie bit her lower lip, and she wished he would say everything that she wanted to hear. They sat wordlessly for a moment until Cullen seemed to regain his bearings.

“We should… finish our game, right?” he asked, his voice casting a tingly sensation over the tips of Elodie’s ears.

He sounded just as distracted as she felt, as if either of them were right on the cusp of bursting out with something they couldn’t step back from. Elodie wished she hadn’t worn a vest over her blouse; her ribcage felt too full, and the constriction was making her lightheaded.

“I wouldn’t want us to be late for dinner,” Elodie replied in agreement. In actuality, she didn’t want their game to end. She couldn’t seem to conjure up much of an appetite for stew at the moment.

The two of them lapsed into a concentrated quiet, wherein Elodie remembered some of the strategies her father had taught her. The garden around them hushed whispers of evening breezes around their shoulders, and after a moment, Cullen sat back and chuckled.

“I believe this one is yours,” he conceded.

Elodie gasped.

“W-what?”

“Do you mean to tell me you beat me without even trying?” Cullen asked, laughing at her horrified expression. “Spare a bit of my pride, I beg you.”

“I _was_ trying, I just didn’t think I could actually do it. I haven’t played in forever.” She gave a nervous titter, her eyes still on the board. She looked up, squinting in half-joking suspicion. “You didn’t let me win, did you?”

“I would never,” Cullen replied, eyes alight. “Believe me. Trying to beat you fairly has been the most fun I’ve had in a fortnight.”

“Even if you didn’t succeed?”

“Especially since I didn’t succeed,” he answered, his voice low.

“Looks like _you’ve_ been hanging around Dorian too much,” she joked, pleased at the sudden ease with which Cullen was flirting. “Do you want to play another round?”

“I know when I’ve been beaten,” he said, stretching to stand up. “Plus, dinner will be ready soon. I’m sure I can smell stew.”

“You’re eating with us, right?” Elodie asked, pushing out of the chair and moving to clean her pieces from the board. There was a velvet-lined box that the dragon bone pieces could be placed into in order to protect them from scratches, and she reached for it at the same time as the Commander. Their hands touched, and both of them flinched back.

“I… ah,” he paused, then cleared his throat. “I have duties to attend to. Another time perhaps.”

“Of course,” Elodie nodded, placing the chess pieces into their container as slowly as she could. She told herself it was out of courtesy to whoever’s chess set they had borrowed, but really she wanted to draw out their time together, wringing each second for all it was worth before he retreated back to his work. When she closed the lid, it felt too soon. She looked up in time to see Cullen stand and offer her his hand to her.

“I have something to show you before you go, if you have a moment,” he said. Elodie slipped her hand into his palm and nodded, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “Close your eyes.”

She obeyed, and instantly felt his hand leave hers. Her first instinct told her to open them, to seek him out, but he had asked her to close them in the first place. She trusted him.

Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she refrained from even crossing her arms in the cool night air. She heard something, a tiny breath, then another.

Footsteps.

She knew Cullen was back before she felt him touch her elbow; she could smell crushed violets and lightly oiled leather, these scents mingling together with something warm and smoky.

“Open your eyes and look up,” he suggested, his voice barely an order and more reverent than she thought possible in a whisper. She obeyed automatically, tilting her chin up and opening her eyes.

She gasped as her eyes immediately adjusted to the dark. He’d extinguished the torches, plunging the garden into black. As her pupils dilated to take in the night to its fullest, her elven eyes took in all of the fine details of the garden around them.

The enclosed gazebo was bathed in soft blue moonbeams; the verdant ferns lining the walkways were black and silver as they lay swathed in shadow; and up above them the pinpricks of stars glowed so much more fantastically than they ever had before at Haven. Their being far from the breach, perhaps, was what made the sky here look so bright and somehow _deep_. Absurdly, Elodie wished she could swim in it.

“It goes on forever, doesn’t it?” she whispered, more to herself than anything. Cullen seemed content not to answer, seemed to know that she didn’t need him to. He sighed happily at her side. “Cullen, it’s…” Elodie shook her head in awe.

She’d lain under skies like this in the Planasene Forest with her father. She’d sought them out with Imara back in Wycome. She’d slept under heavens as rich as this before, back when the world wasn't rife with rifts. And this was a reminder that someday, when she healed them of the breach, Elodie would get the chance to do so again. It would wait for her, depthless and inviting.

“Eventually,” Cullen whispered, “this garden will also be transformed, just as you’ve given us the resources to transform the courtyard and towers and great hall.”

Elodie’s eyelashes fluttered, but she kept her eyes upturned and hoped to hear more.

“I thought you might like to see the sky from here before renovations began,” he added.

"You were right. I wouldn't have wanted to miss... all of this."

"I'm glad I could step away long enough to watch you take it in," he whispered back.

“Will we find somewhere new, after this?” she asked, praying Cullen knew what she meant.  _Will we find somewhere new, for the two of us to just be us?_

“I hope so.”

She made a small noise in her throat, one of optimistic agreement.

“I also…” he stopped to swallow, as if he wanted to start over. “I never found a good time to return this to you, and I didn’t know what to say when I did,” he whispered.

Elodie turned and watched Cullen draw a leather strap from his collar. With two hands, he lifted the necklace she’d given him in the last moments at Haven and pulled it over his bowed head as if it were a bejeweled crown.

“You kept it.” She was incredulous, staring at the clear ring held aloft between them.

“Of course I did,” he said, his tone one of amusement. “You asked me to.”

“I thought you might have lost it.”

His look of disdain showed her she’d given him offense, and she hurried to apologize.

“I’m sorry, it’s not that I didn’t think you would be careful, but I figured it wouldn’t be a priority.”

“I kept it in my hand the entire walk from Haven. I was afraid if I let it go, you would fail.”

“Why did you-”

“Let’s not revisit that night,” Cullen cut her off with as much kindness as one could use when interrupting. The glass ring dangling from his hands clinked delicately against his armor as he lowered the necklace. “I honored your only request of me, so please, take it.”

“Why are you giving it to me now?” Elodie asked, trying not to look guilty.

“When I found you in the snow, I was too busy praying that you would survive to return it. I meant to do so right away once you were recovered.” He looked down at the glimmering thing and gave a humorless laugh. “I feel as though I squandered that opportunity, too. You were up and walking so quickly, and I couldn’t find any words to say to you when you looked at me. Or maybe I had too many. I would go to you, see the way your eyes lit up, and find myself lost.”

Elodie clenched her jaw, trying to slow her heartbeat.

“And so I kept it, waiting for a time that felt more opportune.”

“Cullen-”

“Here,” he moved to put it on her and she caught both of his hands in hers before he could rope it around her neck. With a loop of her fingers, she pried the leather strap from his gloved hands. He dropped his arms so that they could rest at the pommel of his sword, acceptance written in the shadows of his face.

She shook her head. The silly man thought that she wanted to put it on without his help.

“I want you to keep it,” Elodie said.

Cullen's brow knit together, and he tilted his head to one side in his confusion.

“Why?”

“Because.”

She stopped. She wanted him to have it, wanted him to keep it more than anything, but she didn’t know why. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Cullen gave a good-natured scoff.

“Just because?” he asked. “Forgive me, but I thought that this was precious to your clan? You can’t just give it to-”

“I made it in Redcliffe,” Elodie answered.

As soon as it slipped from her mouth, Cullen’s smile vanished. She exhaled, her breath fleeing her lungs in a rush, and hurried to explain.

“Okay so I- I lied, back at Haven. It wasn’t precious to my clan. I made it from some junk I found, and it was the only thing on me when the archdemon attacked. I asked you to keep it so that I wouldn’t leave you empty-handed if I didn’t survive, and I thought you wouldn’t take it if you knew it was only from me to you.”

Cullen made no move to reply, and he stood stock still before her in the moonlight as if he were having trouble absorbing her words. Elodie found herself still speaking, as she always seemed to do in his presence.

“I used to make things, when I was little,” she stammered. “I started again back at Haven, what with all the stuff we kept finding that I couldn’t seem to leave behind. And I made this one for myself. But then when you said goodbye, and I had to leave, and I knew-" she snapped her mouth shut, stopping herself, then tried again. "It was wrong of me to lie to you about the necklace, but-”

She felt her breathing increase in tempo as he watched her, and she wondered nervously if this was how a Templar watched over a Harrowing. She shook her head against the imagery.

“But I wasn’t going to survive, Cullen. Even if this thing was completely devoid of value, I couldn’t leave without you taking a piece of me.”

She stood there watching him, her chest rising and falling with breaths she knew were coming too quickly, with ashamed When Cullen opened his mouth and finally spoke, his tone was devoid of anything to clue Elodie in to whether or not he was angry with her for her deceit.

“And why couldn’t you?”

“Because-”

_I’m yours_.

She cut herself off, and she wished she could decide if she wanted to cry or kiss him. Either seemed very possible, likely even, if he didn’t say anything in the next ten seconds. Instead of doing one or the other, she settled on clenching her jaw and staring at him pleadingly.

“Just because. Again,” he said, looking for confirmation.

Elodie could only nod.

He frowned, and she wondered if he could read her facial expressions in the dark as easily as she could read his. She bit her lip, unable to say more. He let out a ragged sigh.

“Maker’s breath. Did you think I would forget you so easily?” he accused, hurt lacing his words. “I thought that you of all people would know better than that.”

“No, I knew that you wouldn’t forget me,” she said, giving a sarcastic wave and sending the little ring clinking harshly against his breastplate. “How could you, how could any of you, forget the Herald as she fell at the hands of an archdemon? The stories would never have ended! They would have rewritten portions of the Chant! They would have erected statues for the Martyr of Andraste across the country, and Maker forbid that the Inquisitor falls now, that will just make for even more shrines cropping up in her place!”

“Enough with the titles, Elodie Lavellan,” Cullen snapped. “You were never _just_ the Herald to me, so don’t act as if you know how deeply I’d mourn you!”

She flinched at the harshness in his tone, and looked down to where his hands were clenched in fists at his side, almost as if he had to keep them tight enough to prevent him from crossing his arms and closing himself off to the conversation.

Elodie stared at his hands, wide-eyed, and her ire faded almost as quickly as it had flared. She stood there, expecting more of a rebuke as she marveled at how far she must have bent Cullen’s self control for him to snap at her. She deserved another lash for spurning the ways people looked at her with respect, the ways they showed their trust in her abilities, and the way he was trying to reassure her now.

But instead of shouting, Cullen swallowed and continued softly.

“I don’t know how it must be for you. The leaving, I mean. Maybe it’s easy, maybe your clan moved so often that you like to roam. Maybe it’s difficult, because you’re worried, like I am, that Haven will happen a second time.”

Hot pinpricks of tears started to form at the corner of Elodie’s eyes, and she tried to blink them back.

“I think about you when you leave,” Cullen confessed in a voice torn at its edges. “Sometimes you go to close a rift, other times just to rescue a blighted druffalo or sheep or what-have-you.”

Air escaped her lips in a kind of surprised laugh. He didn’t notice, or if he did, he didn’t show it.

“But… every time you go, I think about what would happen, should anything happen to you. Sometimes from a logistics standpoint, other times from a more emotional one, but always as I watch your party disappear over the horizon.”

Elodie wanted to speak, to ask Cullen what he meant, but he didn’t give her a chance.

“What would I do if you died?” he asked, his voice a low and shaky whisper.

Her gaze drew back to his, searching for an explanation and finding none. Cullen’s eyes were alight with something that looked like anger, but Elodie wondered if maybe it wasn’t directed at her after all. If maybe it never had been in the first place. She wondered if she was seeing, perhaps fully for the first time, the full extent of Cullen's fear.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“I don’t know either,” he said, his face suddenly breaking with a sorrowful smile she could tell he hadn’t wanted to let escape. “I can never think about it for long enough to figure out a damn solution.”

She was going to cry. It was happening. She could feel it stinging at the corner of her eyes, and her only solace was that he sniffed hard, as if he was about to do the same. She stared at him, convinced that if she looked away the tears would fall, but if she just stared at him she could keep them back behind her lashes. His throat moved as he swallowed hard.

“I do know this, though,” he said, regaining some strength in his voice even as he kept it low and intimate. “No matter what happens, even if fate is so cruel as to force me to outlive you, it’s true that you will be a symbol to many.”

He paused, moving forward so that she would catch his whispers on the breeze between them.

“But to me? Alone, under the stars?" Cullen whispered, his voice as soft as if he were praying. "You will always be a pretty Dalish girl with a penchant for strange questions, bad dreams, and collections of useless, shiny objects.”

Elodie closed her eyes, sending tears down over her cheeks. She could hear him shift his weight in front of her, leathers creaking slightly, and she wondered if he felt lighter from having told her everything in a rush.

She couldn’t keep from touching him any longer. She slumped forward onto Cullen's breastplate, the garbage necklace trapped in her palms between them. Cullen caught her, but she could feel the hesitance in the way he drew his hands over her arms. Slowly, his caresses migrated to her shoulders, then her back, until he was holding her and swaying slightly as she cried against him.

“I’m sorry I gave you a lie,” she whispered into his fur collar. Her tears were hot and too big for her lashes to hold, falling whether she blinked or screwed her eyes tightly shut. Cullen shifted so that she would look up at him. She sniffled, controlling her breathing as best she could.

“I’m happy you gave me a trinket to remember you by,” Cullen murmured, one of his hands caressing the lowest curve of her spine. "Even if it wasn't exactly the most truthful of presents, you're right. I would have been lost without it had you fallen."

She closed her eyes, his words still spiraling around her like starlight, and tried not to cry harder at the thought. She was here now, and mentally she promised him that she would make him a better necklace, one worthy of being kept so close to his heart.

"But you know what this means for us now, right?"

"What?" Elodie asked, a droplet of fear chilling her from the inside. Did it mean he couldn't trust her anymore? That he would not keep the necklace until she could give him a better one? That he was uncomfortable with the thought of being hers?

Cullen, unaware of her inner turmoil, gave a mirthless chuckle.

"It means I am absolutely never playing you in Wicked Grace."

She laughed. The sound muffled in Cullen's fur mantle, caught in his armor, and she nuzzled in further to the embrace as her laughter faded to a mere smile.

“Hey.” Cullen pressed his lips down onto the part in her hair, something like a kiss, until she looked up at him in the dark once more. “I’d like my Elodie necklace back now, please.”

She couldn’t help but smile at how seriously he said it, and he seemed to react to her expression by mirroring it. His entire demeanor changed, and Elodie swore he looked so much younger in the moonlight than she’d ever seen him look before. She could tell that he was trying to portray confidence, but that he was experiencing the same kind of bubbly, effervescent nerves that she could feel running through her veins. The way he smiled at her, she felt as if she was going to burst into fractured light at any moment.

“Here, bestow it upon me,” he insisted, drawing himself lower and offering his neck.

“You’re sure you want this little thing?” Elodie asked, still holding the simple glass ring on a leather string in both of her hands like it was a firefly that might attempt to escape.

Cullen smiled and, as if he wanted to prove it to her, let her go as he took a step back, then another. Before her very eyes, he knelt down and bowed his head as if he were about to be knighted by royalty. Elodie sighed, trying not to smile and failing miserably.

“This is very cute, but you can stand up now.”

“I can’t,” Cullen answered. “Not until you bestow your favor.”

Her laughter rang out across the gardens, clear as a bell, and Elodie heard it echo back to her from the stone enclosing them there. It was a rich sound, a free sound. She sighed, barely in control of the sudden influx of emotions she’d been subjected to in the last half hour.

“As you wish. By order of the Inquisitor, Lady Elodie Sulahna Lavellan, I bestow upon thee, Commander Cullen…” she halted in her monologue, stumped momentarily, then squatted a few inches to whisper to him. “What’s your middle name?”

“Stanton,” he said, lifting his face to whisper it as if they truly were before a crowd and then dropping his head back down again. Elodie straightened and cleared her throat as regally as she could muster.

“Commander Cullen Stanton Rutherford, I hereby do bestow upon you the most revered of all Lavellan clan heirlooms: the… um,” Elodie paused, breaking character for a second as she fumbled with the thin leather strips, trying to hang them over her fingers so that she could lower the necklace in a circle over Cullen’s curls. “The…” oh blight. She didn’t have a name for it.

He glanced up at her, and if she didn’t know any better Elodie could swear that he was enjoying the view of her tear-streaked face scrunched in momentary concentration as she stared at the dangling hunk of glass.

“The…?” he prompted. She looked down at him, at his golden armor washed clear and starlike in the blueish light of the moon.

Inspiration.

“The Amulet of Stardust.”

Cullen made a noise, one that Elodie decided was him being impressed. She shushed him briefly and he went back to very seriously bowing his head before her. With shaky fingertips, Elodie lowered the simple thing down over his crown until the leather strap rested against the nape of his neck.

Unable to resist, she dragged both hands across his curls, smoothing them back behind his ears as she tilted his head so that he would face her. When he did, eyes closed gently as if he was enraptured by her touch, Elodie could barely stand it. She cleared her throat and stood up straight.

“Rise, Commander, and thank your Inquisitor,” she ordered.

Cullen opened his eyes, blinking once as if he’d misheard her. He got up more fluidly than she expected a man in armor to be able to, and then stood watching her with a hungry look in his eyes. His pupils were wide, his eyes so dark compared to how they shone in the daylight, and had it been anyone but him Elodie would have been afraid.

But this was Cullen. If anything, she could feel his hunger matched in her. He stepped forward and took her hands in his, pressing them against where the glass ring lay over his breastplate.

“No titles. Just for a moment.”

She looked up, confused, and he tilted his head ever so slightly, as if he were inviting her to lean forward and kiss him. She didn’t; she was still stunned at the feeling of his heartbeat under her hands, or was that just her imagination? He smiled down at her.

“Just us.”

“Yes,” she whispered. It was simple, if only for this collection of heartbeats. Why couldn’t it be simple like this at all times? “Rise, Cullen,” she breathed, her lips barely finding the words, “and thank your Elodie.”

Cullen’s face darkened further, and she stared him down with equal intensity. They could close the space between them, if they wished. It would only take a second, and Elodie had been imagining what his scar would taste like for what felt like forever. He dipped his head low, and her responsive gasp would have embarrassed her had she not felt his lips at her cheek, back near her ear. He brushed them against her skin in a soft, worshipful kiss, and then kept them resting there for a moment longer.

“Thank you, my Elodie,” he whispered, and Elodie knew she had to say it now or they would both be the worse for it.

“Cullen, I-”

Before she could confess, a door opened behind them and startled them both into flinching.

“Excuse me? Is anyone out here?” a scout called. Cullen’s arm locked hard on hers, and they both held their breath.

Elodie stood frozen and stared up at her Commander; one of his hands had moved to his hip as an immediate instinct. He caught himself, his gloved hand between them hesitating before it settled for resting on the pommel of his sword instead of drawing it. The scout shouted again into the dark garden.

“Madame de Fer is searching for Inquisitor Lavellan, and Master Pavus said she was here.”

They were so close. She could feel Cullen’s hand tightening at her back, could feel him pulling her closer still. He relaxed against her, his stubbled cheek once more pressed against hers as if he were going to just ignore the scout entirely. Cullen’s lips grazed the soft skin by her ear, making her knees weak, but Elodie couldn’t tell if it had been on purpose. She didn’t want to turn and call over his shoulder to where the scout was standing in the doorway leading to the great hall.

But she didn’t want the scout actively trying to search for her here, either.

“I am. I’m here,” Elodie said away from Cullen’s ear, loud enough to be heard across the path. Cullen’s hand went to drop from her back, but she caught his waist and kept him flush against her. He exhaled, a breath of surprise against her curls. Instinctively, Elodie nuzzled closer into his neck, her lips against his jugular.

He groaned, a noise that the soft whispers of the night air were sure to have carried over to the scout. It sent sharp excitement coursing through Elodie’s veins.

If Cullen responded so easily to so small a touch, what other noises could she elicit from him if she tried?

“G-give me a minute,” Elodie turned and called, praying to the Maker that the scout’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the night just yet. “I’ll be right in.”

“Very good, your Worship,” they replied, ducking back in from where they’d come. Cullen’s fingers fell from her back, as if he were expecting her to let him go.

“Commander?”

He did not reply, and instead reached up to cup her face in his hands. Gently, he swiped beneath her eyes so that any trace of tears she’d shed were wiped away. She smiled up at him as his touch turned into a caress, as he traced his thumb down the line of her scar, and then he seemed to remember himself. They separated a few more inches, and a breeze filtered past the gazebo and through the space between them.

“Are you free tomorrow?” Elodie asked him, a poor attempt to fill the silence.

“I’m afraid not. There’s much work to be done, especially with scouts needing to be sent into the Western Approach before you leave again.”

“If I had something I wished to discuss, would you be able to pencil me in?” she rephrased, hoping that her note of playfulness would hide how desperately she needed for him to agree. She reached out and took one of his hands in hers.

“I… oh. Yes, of course. If you let me know when it’s convenient for you, I can arrange my schedule accordingly,” he replied, his tone decidedly less tense than it had been a moment before. He sounded amazed that she would want to meet with him at all, and Elodie’s heart clenched at the idea.

His fingers tightened briefly on hers, and she acted. Hands shaking, Elodie took his palm in both of hers. As he watched, she pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

He couldn’t feel the touch of her lips through the leather, but his hand clenched as if he had all the same. Looking up at him through her lashes, Elodie noted that his heavy-lidded eyes seemed even deeper than the skies above them. She kept his hand near to her chin and kept his gaze locked with hers.

“Can you spare an hour for me, Cullen?”

“Mmm,” he all but groaned, a noise that caught them both by surprise. He flushed, his other hand coming up to grip hers as if to keep it from fleeing. “I can, and I will.”

Elodie gave his fingers another squeeze and they both relaxed. As soon as their hands fell apart, Cullen’s was at the nape of his neck and Elodie’s was fiddling with one of her loose curls. She watched him tuck the Amulet of Stardust down into his armor, and she couldn’t help but smile at the way his gloved hand lingered over his chest for a second after.

“Walk me in?” she asked. It wasn’t what she wanted, and she mused that it didn’t seem to be what Cullen wanted either… but it was what she anticipated he’d agree to.

“Of course,” he answered. She half-expected him to offer her his arm again, but he grabbed the box containing the chess set and motioned for her to go before him. As she walked towards the door, she noted that he relit two of the torches behind them.

He held the doors open for her, stayed close to her, and Elodie reveled in the feeling of his company while it lasted. As soon as she caught Dorian’s eye when they entered the great hall, though, Elodie could tell that Cullen was withdrawing.

The Commander seemed to hold himself up straighter in front of the others, and he adopted an expression of stern neutrality. Elodie ignored the way Cassandra was staring at her, eyes too hopeful for her own good, and instead turned to Cullen before he ran off.

“Tomorrow?” she reminded him.

Elodie could tell her voice was desperate, residual endorphins sneaking into her tone and turning it nervous. But Cullen's expression smoothed for a moment, hazel eyes conveying a fondness that didn’t necessarily reach his lips.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, and he was gone before Dorian had a chance to set his wine down and cajole the former Templar into joining them for a meal.

“Well, well, well,” Dorian proclaimed as he took Cullen’s place at Elodie’s side. “Judging by the look on our dear Chantry boy’s face, you enacted sweet revenge on him for disgracing me. Good girl. I hope your victory was swift and brutal.”

“I am very out of practice,” Elodie replied with a laugh, taking the goblet Dorian held out to her. She sipped it carefully, enjoying the bouquet.

“Oh my dear Inquisitor, do you not have much chance to practice your _chess_ strategy?” he asked, giving her a villainous eyebrow waggle. She almost spat out her wine.

“I… do not.” Elodie grit her teeth and forced herself to look up at Dorian, begging him with her eyes to cut the teasing. His expression changed from one of mild jibbing to one of positive deviousness. “We can talk about this later, really, it’s not exciting dinner conversation.”

“Come sit by me,” Dorian said firmly, locking arms with her and leading her over to where Varric and Hawke were recounting some mad tale or other, much to the delight of the young Inquisition troops sitting around them. Behind them, Mother Giselle was speaking to Leliana. The Revered Mother watched Dorian lead Elodie by the arm, her expression none too pleased, but Leliana effectively drew Mother Giselle’s ear back to the hushed conversation they were in the middle of.

“A Tevinter mage and a Dalish Herald,” she murmured, wondering at what the pair of them must look like. Dorian didn’t seem to hear her or notice the stares.

“Sit, sit. We can speak of this _chess_ over some roasted mutton stew.”

“Dorian, must we? I thought Vivienne was looking for me.” She set her wine down on the table. “Didn’t you send the scout to interrupt my game?”

“She is, and I did no such thing. If anything, I grabbed that errant scout and distracted him before he burst in on you and the Commander mid dopey-eyed stare.”

If she didn’t like the Tevinter mage so much, Elodie would have wanted to pinch him. As if he could read her thoughts, Dorian even had the audacity to wink.

“Whatever she needs you for, I’m certain our Grand Enchanter can wait until after an apperitif at the least,” he said, pulling out her chair for her. Blackwall was sitting by them, sopping up the last of his stew with a piece of bread. He nodded as Elodie sat down across from him, and Dorian sat as well with a lofty sigh. “Now then, Inquisitor. Where were we?”

“I was suggesting that we not talk about _chess_ here,” Elodie reminded Dorian, smiling at her two companions as Hawke demonstrated a move with a pair of tongs behind them.

“Let’s start with some simple word association, then,” Dorian said, his voice convivial despite his serious expression. “For example, when I say… _red_ ,” he practically growled out the color as if it were a sexual command, making Elodie scoff in amusement, “what word do you think of?”

“Templars,” Blackwall said around a mouthful of mutton stew, and Elodie could almost see Dorian physically ruffle, like a cat who’d gotten water flicked on its whiskers.

“Temp… that’s the word you think of when you hear _red_ uttered in a seductive tone?” the mage demanded, indignant. Blackwall shrugged.

“We fought a lot of them on the Storm Coast. Got used to hearing the words together.” He scraped his bowl a bit, mischief making his blue eyes dance. “Also, you might want to work on your technique. I’m barely seduced.”

“Roses,” Elodie answered, grinning at the two of them. “I think of roses.”

“Alright good,” Dorian took a tiny sip of wine, his facial expression saying that it was necessary to calm his frazzled nerves. Elodie twisted her lips to try to hide her smirk. “How about _lion_.”

“Taming,” Blackwall replied immediately, setting his spoon down and pointing at the mage like he’d won the entire game.

“You can’t just keep saying two words you always hear together,” Dorian sighed. “It’s… you’re supposed to imagine something.”

“I do,” the Grey Warden protested. “When you say lion, I imagine lion-taming.”

“So do I,” Elodie teased.

Dorian gave a world-weary sigh, and as if on cue Sera bounded up and threw herself in the empty chair beside Blackwall.

“Who’s taming lions?” she asked, grabbing a loaf of bread and tearing off a bite sized piece to chew on while she narrowed her eyes at Elodie. “If our Lady Herald is searching for some animal opportunity, I’m not saying I know some people… but I might know some people.”

“Nobody is going to tame any lions, look now-”

“Dorian’s playing a game,” Blackwall explained. “And he’s upset that I’m winning.”

“Excuse me? First of all, how dare-”

“Oh let’s have at it, then,” Sera crowed. “Tell me! What’s the rules, so I can break ‘em?”

Elodie smiled, triumphant in her second trap-like victory of the night, and Dorian rolled his eyes. He pretended to be laboriously annoyed at having to run through the explanation all over again, but Elodie could tell from the slight crinkling of his eyes at the corners that he was loving the attention. As the game devolved into dares that bordered on the inappropriate, as it usually did when Blackwall and Sera were allowed to hang out with one another, Dorian gave Elodie a fond shake of his head.

“To be continued,” he promised.

As Dorian moved on and fought with Sera over whether or not arrows could be the answer to literally everything he said, Blackwall turned to Elodie.

“I’d be a dry scotch,” the Grey Warden said.

“What?” Elodie asked, then remembered belatedly what she’d quizzed him on before. She smiled slowly, realization dawning. “Oh. Scotch, as a drink. I remember."

"Right."

"Because you warm people with your presence.”

“Well not exactly that,” Blackwall laughed, raising his pint to her in a toast as his cheeks glowed. “I chose it because I feel like I go well with most meat dishes. But I like your metaphor better. Very poetic.”

Elodie laughed as Blackwall chuckled into his stein, and she sat back. For a moment, she was content to sit and watch as the two tables filled with Inquisition forces enjoyed a rare carefree moment as Dorian sighed loud enough to startle a Chantry sister. Elodie felt a tentative peacefulness settle in her bones as she relaxed around her companions, and when she turned from the fire crackling across the way, she could still feel a warmth on her cheek from its soft flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope those of y'all that play chess don't find this too disjointed and awful!! I was like Elodie, and not super focused on the game itself ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	14. To The Point Of Distraction

Elodie found herself unable to sleep, which was unfortunately her new normal. Nightmares were a constant friend, as was the fatigue that settled deep into her bones. She tried to recall how it felt to sleep in past the rising of the sun, how it felt to have cool autumn air kiss her shoulders while she snuggled deeper into warm pelts, while breakfast or lunch or possibly dinner crackled on a spit just outside her tent flap. It was not an image that came easily to her. However, unlike the nights in the field where rest eluded her because of guilt, worry, or stress, tonight Elodie found herself morbidly relishing the insomnia.

She couldn’t stop replaying the events after the chess game, especially the part where Cullen's mouth had pressed against her skin by her ear, and it was driving her mad.

After dinner, Elodie had noted the hour and waited for the one renovated public bath beneath the Inquisition keep to clear out. She still found herself double- and triple- checking the times, making sure it was not the men’s turn to use the secluded outdoor bath freely, and once she was positive she wouldn’t be interrupted she had a long scrub and soak. She had thought that bathing would banish the deviant thoughts from her mind, but halfway through dragging soap over her arms, Elodie found her mind wandering. She wondered vaguely what it would be like to have Cullen beside her in such an intimate setting. Would he bring whatever it was of his that smelled of crushed violets? Be it shampoo, or oil, or soap?

More importantly, if he were here with her now, would he use it on her?

Needless to say, she exited the bath quickly, fit to overheat before even dipping into the steaming water. Two hours later and sadly smelling only like herself, Elodie found herself pacing her quarters and trying to find something to occupy her whirling mind. She had things she could do, things to keep busy, but it all paled in comparison to the act of daydreaming. Elodie's brain kept on returning, no matter what she threw at it, to the memory of Cullen holding her.

Andraste preserve her, did it have to feel so damn  _good_ when Cullen held her?

He’d actively cradled her in the dark, so much braver than he was in the daylight, with his hand at the lowest dip in her spine and his armor warm against the front of her blouse. Their moans (they had both inadvertently moaned, Elodie reminded herself) had mixed softly with the whispers of the ferns and elfroot. He’d asked to keep the necklace, asked her why it mattered to her, and things between them had been so easy for just one moment. She’d been overwhelmed.

At least, she thought she'd been overwhelmed then; now she was pacing, and she had progressed from overwhelmed into a state of manic potential energy.

Maker, she really had nothing to do. The papers on her desk, the correspondence in her basket, the files under a stack of books... none of it was urgent or pressing. Had it been, she would have started it deliberately and methodically in order to give her mind some direction. Had she needed to finish a report by the morning, or fill a request in two days, or make a list for supplies, she would have.

With nothing urgent to focus her, Elodie kept coming back to thoughts of Cullen. Damn, it was such inconvenient timing for them to have come together so closely only to have turned away. In the grand scheme of things, it was a blessed moment of downtime before the Western Approach, where a few days were needed to resupply and prepare and recoup.

But she had done that already. And it didn't feel blessed. It felt like she'd cursed herself by doing all her work ahead of time. The insomnia she’d struggled with had led her to make thorough and detailed short reports to Leliana the entire course of her Crestwood excursion each night before bed, and so she was essentially finished until the war council met to discuss strategy. And she couldn't think of the war council without thinking of Cullen. Thoughts of Cullen led to thoughts of where they'd left off in the garden, thoughts of what noises she could draw from his throat if she could confess what she'd meant to confess.

At a loss, Elodie supposed she could read. She had tried that twice now. Once, she had picked up a book Dorian had recommended about the Magisterium, and she had zoned out after four paragraphs and begun to daydream about a garden with lockable doors. Next, she had attempted to get through a romance novel that Cassandra had insisted she borrow. After the first instance of ‘heaving bosoms’, however, Elodie had found it was only furthering her feverish heartbeat instead of slowing it.

It wasn’t torture, exactly. The anticipation ached and hurt within her, but it was welcome and entrancing and _delectable_ in its pain. She didn't know why the first word that came to mind was torture, but it was one she kept coming back to. How would she wait with these thoughts kept to herself? Tomorrow, whenever that meant, she would talk to Cullen. She would get a chance to relieve the longing for them both. She would tell him that she cared for him, explicitly, in no uncertain terms, and he would-

It was a bit like torture, actually, imagining the ways that he could gently put her feelings aside should he not feel the same. Even after everything he had shown her, there was still that possibility that he did not feel the same. Maybe this was 'fun with the pretty Dalish girl' to him. Or maybe he thought this was just 'fun with the handsome Templar' to her.

_Handsome former Templar_ , Elodie mentally corrected herself, in a voice that sounded unnervingly like Dorian's.

Groaning in frustration, Elodie jumped and threw herself on the fur-covered bed, bouncing slightly. It was a circular path, thinking about Cullen, one she would only see an end to tomorrow.

A horrible, ice-cold thought occurred. What if she did this tomorrow, _except out loud and where Cullen could hear_?

Her eyes snapped open and she sat up with a shudder. Suddenly too cold, she moved and closed the windows to the balcony. A part of her told her to go out and lean over the edge, trying to get a view of the courtyard so that she might be able to spot any errant blond Commanders taking pre-bedtime walks. She refused, determined to show some self-control for once. After she locked the windows firmly, reminding herself to requisition curtains at some point, Elodie turned and glanced at her desk. Parchment there. Quills as well.

The idea was only half-formed when she sat down at her desk and began to write, but as she scrawled a lazy list into the paper she began to feel more at ease. By the time she was finished, half a candle had burned and Elodie was finally ready for bed.

* * *

“I brought you redcurrant jam,” Dorian said smoothly, sitting down next to Elodie at the breakfast table. Troops around them made a space and Elodie narrowed her eyes at him over her tea. “Your favorite!”

“You think you can ply me with berry sweets, scoundrel?” she teased.

“Someone finally got a good night’s sleep, it looks like,” Varric said from the other side of the table. He was clearing his plate just as Elodie was tucking into hers, so they hadn’t had a chance to more than nod good morning. At his remark, she beamed.

“A bath and a bed can really do a soul some good.”

“Apparently they do an even bigger good to your curls,” Dorian purred, spreading the sugary sauce onto a warm hunk of fresh bread. Elodie rolled her eyes over to him and he raised the bread to his lips. “You’re positively angelic.”

“Whatever he wants, Inquisitor,” Varric said, addressing Elodie with a chuckle, “you better at least make him work for it.”

“Thanks Varric.”

The dwarf waved over his shoulder and walked out with two new recruits trailing behind him, no doubt eager to subject him to the same puppy-love as Dorian was turning on Elodie at the moment. She marveled at Varric’s patience in regards to telling Hawke stories, wondered if she could get the dwarf to coach her in evasive conversation tactics.

“How does he know I want anything?” Dorian asked, chewing slowly. “Should I be offended at that?”

“ _Do_ you want something?” Elodie retorted, taking some of the currant jam and spreading it on her own bread slice.

“I want to know when Varric nicknamed Solas, for starters. I mean, I don’t have a nickname yet. How does one go about getting a nickname?”

“Dorian.”

“Are you about to thank me for the jam? Don’t let me cut you off if you are.”

“Thank you for the jam,” Elodie said, giving him a reluctant smile. “Redcurrants are almost my favorite, you’re very close.”

“Almost?” The Tevinter mage pouted. “I wasn’t going for almost.”

“You’ll have to try harder then.”

"There is no trying harder," he protested. "I spoke to Cole in looping, backwards conversation for an hour in order to pry your favorite breakfast sweet from him. All for naught, it seems.  _Almost._ "

"Sorry," Elodie said, trying not to smile lest it send her companion into even further mustache twitches.

“Do they have your favorite here in Skyhold? I should be aware of it, for the next time I try to pry information from you.”

“I knew that was why you were up so early,” she snarked, pointing her half-eaten bread chunk at him. He scoffed.

“I admit nothing. Tell me what fruits entice you,” he cajoled, with an eyebrow wiggle that made her giggle.

“If you must know, they don’t have my favorite here.”

“I’ll go buy it posthaste if you reveal it to me.”

“You won’t be able to find it, I don’t think. I ate it once when our clan was trading outside of Val Chevin when I was very young, and then my father only got it again for me once a year on my birthday, up until I turned sixteen.”

“Elodie, you really don’t have to pull a Varric and make everything a story, just tell me what you like on your toast.”

“Peach and lavender butter from Les Halles,” she finished.

“What, that?” Dorian exclaimed. “It’s seasonal at best, completely impossible most of the time. I’ve only had that a few times myself while passing through Val Royeaux during the summer bazaar. How did your father pull off such a feat?”

“I figured it out when I got older. He bought out the lot once he knew I liked it, and he rationed the little pots as a gift for my birthday each year.”

“Hmm,” Dorian muttered, sounding less than pleased. “While that's sweet enough to give one a toothache, it does nothing to help me with my cause. When is your birthday?”

“Sometime in summer,” Elodie said, lifting her cup to finish her tea in one swig. “Now, if you’ll excuse me-”

“You only just sat down!”

“-I have an urgent business matter to attend to this morning.”

“What business, pray tell?” Dorian asked, a bit too loudly. "Testing a new form of risque armor today?"

Elodie turned a sharp eye on him, daring him to push her. She was confident, dressed in grey leather breeches and a silver filigree vest over her black blouse. It did feel like armor, in a strange way, with its metal, dragonfly-wing structure over her back and its narrowly cinched waist. She had foregone gloves, and her sleeves were still rolled up from breakfast, but she knew what she looked like.

“Any problems with my outfit?” she quipped.

“On the contrary, my dear. None at all,” the mage answered, giving her a deliberate once-over. “In fact, good luck with your business. I wish you as swift a victory as last night.”

Elodie flushed slightly and exhaled in surprise, but she couldn’t keep from smiling at his ribbing. Of course he’d figured out that she was meeting the Commander. She needed to stop underestimating the cleverness of her Tevinter friend.

“Have a good breakfast, Dorian,” Elodie called, sauntering out of the dining hall without bothering to rebutton her sleeves over her bare forearms.

* * *

In order to get to Cullen’s office from the dining hall, the quickest way was to take a walk past the stables, up the side steps, and then through a door she had not used since she’d gotten back to Skyhold. Elodie only knew of where he’d taken up office because she had asked Cassandra, who, to her credit, did not make a show of telling her. Elodie could tell her friend was giddy with questions based off of the way Cassandra’s right eyebrow raised.

On her walk past the stables there was a chorus of greetings as people set to work with the rising sun. Elodie herself had woken at dawn, unable to wait any longer. She wondered blankly if Cullen was busy at the moment, if he would ask that she leave and come see him later. Would that make her happy, having a set time to meet? Or sad, considering she'd been sent away? He’d said he would make time for her no matter what, she reasoned as she barely refrained from taking the stone steps two at a time. He _would_ make time for her. She _would_ confess. She got to the top of the steps, half-convinced, and stood at the doorway leading to his office with barely any breath left in her lungs. Gently touching her fingertips to one of the pockets on the belt slung low at her hips, Elodie inhaled deeply.

Upon the exhale, she made herself knock.

“It’s open,” came the gruff reply. Her hand hesitated, laying flat for a moment on the thick wood. Her skin was cooled by the gentle breeze from being up so high on the battlements, but her reaction to his voice was immediate and heated. Blinking a bit in the sunlight, Elodie came to a fundamental realization quite abruptly.

She couldn’t do this. She _shouldn’t_ do this. To tell him outright how she felt was a step too far. It would change their entire relationship from here. It would change their conversations, their friendship, their stargazing, their trust, their-

She heard a rustling of papers then a harsh slam, followed by footsteps. Loud enough so that she knew she was the one meant to hear it, Cullen spoke as he stomped over to the door.

“That means come-”

He yanked the door open and froze, both of them startled into immobility.

Cullen’s hair was still slightly damp, as if he had just bathed recently. He smelled strongly of musk and violets, to the point where Elodie had to force herself not to draw him to her so that she could inhale deeply. Her fantasy from last night in the baths resurfaced unbidden, and she had to steady herself with one hand outstretched to catch the doorframe. Cullen made a small noise and then the air fled his lungs in a rush.

“Elodie. I apologize, I didn’t know it was you, I never would’ve… I would’ve been much more polite,” he stammered. “Please, come in.” He turned to the side, holding his arm out to beckon her into his office, and she put a hand to her mouth to stifle a happy gasp.

She liked his office more than her quarters, if she were to be honest. It was very well suited to him. Gentle light washed in from a breezy second level, and from windows originally meant for arrows back behind his desk. The stone of the walls were covered in pinned maps, but also in warm light from several candles lit despite the filtered daylight seeping in. Looking around, Elodie could see that Cullen had converted a space meant for military defense into a space for studying and strategizing. Books, papers, scrolls, templates, cartographic tools, and inkpots surrounded him at all sides, and his desk was large enough to spread several blueprints across at once in order to compare them. The wood of it looked pretty sturdy too, and Elodie wondered briefly how he'd gotten such a piece of furniture in the room. She heard the door close behind her and she turned to face Cullen as he followed her further in.

She'd been silent up until now, she realized. Cullen had apologized, and Elodie, in her stupor, had said nothing. Mentally, she kicked herself, and tried to find something to say to fill the quiet space between them.

“I’ve never seen your office before,” she said by way of explanation.

“High time you dropped by then,” he answered, his tone amiable and soft. Elodie swallowed, tasting sweet red currants.

“Do you like it?”

“It suits my needs,” he said quietly, and he looked as if there was something on his mind. He paused, then blurted, “I wanted to apologize again, for snapping just now. I was trying to finish as much work as I could before you called on me, and I may have gotten a bit distracted. It's been a trying morning.”

"Already? It's barely just begun."

"You have no idea," Cullen muttered.

“Well.. there's no need to apologize, really,” she said, walking around to give herself something to do besides blurting out whatever popped into her mind. “Where does this ladder lead to?”

“My, um,” Cullen cleared his throat, “my quarters.”

Elodie straightened from where she was craning her neck to try and see up to the second story and tried to keep herself from blushing. She wanted to go see what they looked like. Would he let her? Such an invasion of privacy was too rude to even consider, but here she was wanting to consider it.

“Oh. I-”

She was about to say more, but did not get the chance.

“Commander,” a scout came bursting in behind her, one of Leliana’s messengers, “Lady Montilyet requires your signature on three requests for resources, one of them is a new mount for the-” the scout looked up then and saw Elodie standing to the side, her arms crossed and a look of mild interest written on her face. The scout flinched as if she were a ghost. “Inquisitor! Begging your pardon, your Worship, I had no idea there was a meeting going on at the moment.”

“You would have, had you knocked first,” Cullen growled, his tone fearsome.

The poor scout seemed to shrink under his gaze.

“Right, ser. Understood, ser. I’ll just… go.”

“See that you do. And leave the requests,” Cullen barked, sending a thrill through Elodie’s spine at the tone.

The scout bowed, set the requests down on a barrel that seemed to serve as a makeshift table, and not once did she take her eyes off of the Commander as she did so. It was as if she feared all the rumors about Fereldens were true, that he was about to launch across the room like a wild dog and bite her should she make any sudden moves. The scout backed her way out, and Elodie swore that as soon as the door closed she could hear her break into a run. Hiding an incredulous smile, Elodie turned to Cullen just as he heaved a weary sigh.

"Has the entire morning been like this, Cullen?"

"Worse, if you can believe it."

"How much worse?" she asked.

“It's nothing to worry you over. I just should’ve known that it was you when you knocked,” Cullen said bitterly, looking up at her with a sarcastic smile. Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Lately nobody else bothers. Leliana’s agents are in and out of here as if this was a damned postal service instead of my office.”

“Leliana could tell them to leave you alone?” Elodie suggested.

“The problem is that they’re all working,” Cullen sighed. “Nobody comes in here unnecessarily, so I have no cause or means to turn them away. I just wish they’d be a bit more polite about doing it.”

“We need to install some locks on your doors,” she teased. He chuckled dryly.

"Locks on a few doors in this place would be most ideal, I agree," Cullen murmured. Elodie bit her lip, wondering if he hadn't fantasize last night about what could have happened had the garden been more private as well.

“You should be able to work and sleep in peace when you need to,” she whispered as she banished the imagery from her mind.

“I feel as if I never do enough of either, somehow,” Cullen sighed, shaking his head. He stood straight up over the desk and rested his hands on the pommel of his sword. “But no matter. You didn’t come here to listen to me complain. There was something you wished to discuss?”

“There was?” she repeated, distracted by his ability to go from rough to soft in just a few sentences. Cullen watched her, a smile blooming slowly across his lips as she shook her head and found her wits. “Oh. Right, of course. I have something for you.”

“Do you?” he answered, or asked, Elodie couldn’t be sure. He sounded more confident than she felt in the moment, and from the way he walked around his desk to where she was standing threatened to make her forget her gift for him a second time.

“Here,” she pulled the envelope from her belt just as Cullen came to stand a few feet in front of her.

He looked down at the simple parchment paper, unsealed, and then back up at her.

“Were we not to have a discussion?” he asked, his voice a bit small. Elodie’s wrist faltered, shaking as she lowered it a bit. “I’m fine with reading whatever you have for me, but-” Cullen reached out and caught her hand in his, as if to reassure her. “It feels a bit impersonal compared to how we spoke a few hours ago, don’t you think?”

“I…”

The worry that had kept her up all night had fled, replaced by its opposite. Whereas she’d planned for the contingency of not being able to stop babbling, she hadn’t planned for what to do when she couldn’t seem to say anything at all. She shut her mouth and clenched her jaw, feeling caught.

No. She could do this. She was the Inquisitor. She had led a charge against the breach, had driven an envy demon from her own mind, and she could damn well force out more than a word for one of her most cherished friends.

“I’m nervous,” she confessed in a quiet voice. She straightened her shoulders and noted how his mouth fell slightly open. It steeled her, the fact that maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling this way. She continued, “I don’t know why I'm so damn nervous, but I have been ever since we parted. Last night was fun, and beautiful, and you were…” she fumbled for words, “well, so _you_ that I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, but he sounded anything but. "I barely slept myself, if that brings you any solace."

"You know it doesn't," Elodie answered. She glared playfully at him and he dropped his hand away from hers to place it on the nape of his neck almost like he were ashamed. She continued.

“I started thinking of ways to get to sleep. Taking a bath didn’t work,” she turned, waving a bit with the envelope, causing Cullen to flinch back so as not to get papercut, “and then reading sure as the Void didn’t work,” another slice through the air to illustrate a point, “and then laying in bed thinking of this moment didn’t work,” one last swish, accompanied by a sigh as she turned to face her Commander. “And I realized that I was too nervous about explaining myself to sleep. So I sat down and wrote out what I couldn’t stop thinking about. In a kind of letter, or list,” she looked down, unable to keep his gaze when he looked at her intensely like that, hungry like that.

“Is that the list there?”

“It is. I want you to have it,” she said, pressing it to his chestplate with her arm stubbornly extended. She swallowed, forcing herself to stare at him as if she were daring him to refuse.

He didn’t look like he wanted to do anything of the sort. In fact, his expression was one of… gratitude? Tenderness? She couldn’t read him in this moment, couldn’t tell what exactly his reaction was, but none of it mattered because his left hand came up to close over hers. It effectively trapped the letter against his chest, and Elodie wished that she could feel his heartbeat through the metal and cloth layers below that.

“Do you want me to read it now, or later?” he asked, tilting his head down to hers.

Elodie began to imagine what it would be like to make an entirely different kind of list for Cullen, a list she most definitely would want him to read aloud, a list meant for a garden with lockable doors.

“Now,” she said, forcing out the syllable before she could regret it. “That way, if anything is confusing, I can clarify it. And we can talk about it. That is, if you have a moment. That scout before, she talked about-”

“Maker take what the scout was talking about,” Cullen said. She searched his gaze, trying to keep from dropping her eyes down to his scar. If she did, she was going to kiss him. It was inevitable. Cullen’s brow knit together slightly and his grip tightened over hers. “This is more important to me.”

“Then please,” Elodie whispered, her eyes closing.

_Kiss me_.

“Read it,” she bit out.

With difficulty, she pulled her hand free and left the envelope in his leather-clad fingers. He took it and unfolded it before her, and Elodie told herself that standing still would make this easiest. She watched his eyes dart over the list she’d made, the poor introduction she’d written before it, but he did not turn to see the rest. His eyes stayed fixed on the first page. “If you can’t read my handwriting,” she started to say, but silenced herself at his quick glance. That look reminded her that Cullen read her field reports. He should be used to it. Uncertainty made Elodie fidget, though, and she started to pull at a tiny string on the hem of her blouse while she waited.

“So,” Cullen said, taking a deep breath. “Your letter says that you don’t want to make me uncomfortable. I want to thank you for that, and reassure you before we go further with this conversation.” He held the letter out and read a line aloud, paraphrasing for the sake of brevity. “You say here that you ‘still feel concerned that your leadership position has made it hard for me to say no to your attentions’, and I want to address this.”

“Please do,” Elodie said, wringing her hands behind her back as she attempted to look nonplussed. She settled for lowering each of her sleeves carefully and buttoning them at her wrist, rather than having to look Cullen in the eye.

“Was last night not enough for you?” he asked. Her eyes shot to his, immediately hurt, and he made a startled noise. “No! Not like that, Elodie! I just meant, did I not convince you last night that I don’t mind your titles?”

“You did,” she replied, still stung. “But our shared moments can’t all be secret garden rendezvous. Sometimes we will have to embody our titles and rank, and I just…” she gave a huff, not bothering to finish her sentence. It was written down anyway.

He paused, and she could tell he was trying to work something out.

“Do you remember when you asked me to call you by your first name back in Haven?” he asked her, his tone a more soothing one.

“Yes.”

“And did I?”

“Yes,” Elodie said, frowning.

Cullen raised an eyebrow and put on his stern face. Elodie racked her mind, wondering why this was a wrong answer to him, and then it came to her.

“No, actually. You didn’t want to, not right away. You called it inappropriate, said I shouldn't have expected people to do it.”

“I did. I told you how I felt about it, immediately when I had feelings about it.” Cullen softened in his expression, his eyes searching hers. “And if I had felt that you were out of line in giving me your attentions, as my leader and Herald of the Inquisition, I would have told you so back in Haven.”

“I trust that you would have,” Elodie stated truthfully, “but I had to ask to be sure.”

“I agree, with situations like this, it's better to ask outright,” Cullen replied. “Do you need me to say it another way? Just to be sure we understand each other?”

Unable to answer, Elodie nodded.

“Even when we have no time or privacy to shed our titles, I appreciate the moments I have with you. You’re not pressuring me just because I answer to you in the war room.”

“Ah,” Elodie breathed, searching for a way to convey the relief she felt at his statement. But she couldn’t, not when there was more on her mind. “Would you like to keep reading?”

“Certainly,” he said, clearing his throat and skimming the page.

“You can read it aloud if you need to,” Elodie suggested, and her heart threatened to burst out of her chest at his scoff.

“I don’t know if I can, actually,” Cullen said gruffly. Elodie reached for the letter and he took an automatic step back, holding the parchment out of her reach.

“Is it the handwriting?" she asked, "because if it is, I can-”

“No, Elodie, no,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re just… you’re not the only one who’s nervous here.”

Elodie went to say something, but the way he was looking at her and the way he was gripping the letter in his fist made her stop. She nodded and relaxed, then gestured to the paper in his hand. He took a steeling breath and started to read again.

She waited. Standing there in the buttery glow of his office, the stone quarters mercifully quiet and still, Elodie wondered what he would choose to address next. He made a small face, upset.

“What is it?” she asked before she could help herself.

“This part about me finding you after Haven.”

“Oh that,” Elodie said. “Someone mentioned how you were right after I was found in the snow, and I couldn’t recall. It’s all a blur, and I was wondering-”

“I can read,” Cullen interrupted her. Elodie shut her mouth and squinted at him. He was blushing, she could tell even in the low light. “Maker’s breath.”

“Cullen,” Elodie tried to laugh, but her chest felt too cold. She shook her head. “It can’t have been that bad.”

“It was,” he said, finally bringing his eyes to hers. He looked ashamed. Elodie felt the color drain from her face at the sight, but she knew what she’d written. “I embarrassed myself in front of Josephine and Leliana, I should never have done what I did. I had hoped it was only those two witnesses... was it either of them who told you?”

"No," Elodie whispered. "They didn't tell me."

"Damn. That means someone else saw. Elodie, I apologize. Let us leave it at that."

“I only want to know what it was that you did.”

“Why?”

“If you must ask, then read the lines again, starting from, ‘I do not recall’,” she suggested, her voice leaving no room for leeway.

Cullen stared at her, jaw clenched, eyes begging her to rescind her request. Elodie stood firm. He cast his eyes down to the parchment and read aloud as clearly and as awkwardly as if he were reciting an unfamiliar portion of an old textbook.

“‘I do not recall what happened to me after I walked out of Haven, except for the way you gathered me into your cloak. I came to when Solas healed me, but I heard,’” Cullen’s voice failed him and he had to clear his throat before he continued. “‘But I heard from others that you _clung to me_ before I woke up.’ Elodie, I really must insist-”

“Please finish, Cullen,” she asked, cutting him off. “Please.”

He stared at her, then threw his gaze elsewhere as he ran his free hand through his hair, tousling it further. He looked back down at the paper and read too loudly, as if to get it over with.

“‘I wish for you to demonstrate to me exactly what you did, so that I might remember it from here on out.’ There, are you happy?”

“I will be once you show me.”

“It’s…” Cullen dropped the paper, giving a rigorous sigh. “Ridiculous.”

“Then get it over with,” Elodie suggested. “Remember how I showed you what you did in my dreams? That was just as embarrassing for me.”

“But that wasn’t real,” he whispered. “It didn’t really happen, you only dreamed it.”

“It was just as difficult to share with you.”

That thought had apparently not occurred to the Commander. He paused, and his whole demeanor shifted. He seemed to be less defensive, even as the tension stayed at the same thickness between them.

“So,” Elodie said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before crossing her arms. “Can you show me standing? Or should I be lying down?”

Cullen flushed further, and he brought up a hand to cover his mouth as he looked away.

“I will show you,” he said carefully, “only if you can promise me that it will assuage your discomfort with the situation instead of furthering it.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Elodie answered. She shook her head, realization slowly dawning. “Do I seem uncomfortable to you?”

“Oh, not at all, people write such things when they are perfectly at ease,” he retorted acerbically.

“Wait. You think this is a list of… of grievances? Of issues I have with you, things I want you to fix before we continue together?” she demanded.

“It is a bit difficult to interpret it any other way,” Cullen bit back. “Otherwise why would you have asked to do this in person, immediately after last night’s turn of conversation, with an itemized letter explaining ways I’ve slighted you?”

“If you would get through the whole letter before you judged, you’d see the stuff I write about later goes into ways you’ve _helped_ me,” she blurted.

“I would be able to get through the letter if you stopped interrogating me and asking for demonstrations.”

“I’d stop interrogating you if you just did as I asked!”

A moment of shared ire passed between them, but it was enough. They both stood at opposite ends of the office, staring each other down, wondering who would break first. Before Elodie could catch her breath, before she could marvel at the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, Cullen moved first.

“As you wish,” he uttered.

He bit the middle finger of his glove at the tip and yanked it off, pulling his hand free. He was before her in an instant, and his touch surprised a tiny gasp out of her, but she didn’t flinch away. His hand holding the letter went to her waist, and Elodie couldn’t breathe. Cullen pulled her roughly to his chest, embracing her fiercely and pressing her face into the fur at his shoulder.

It was a hug. It was a hug almost exactly like the first one they had shared at Haven, desperate and tight and beautiful. She could deal with a hug.

Elodie relaxed in his arms and drew in a breath. She clung to him, arms behind him and barely able to find purchase in the fabric draped over his glimmering gold armor. It wasn’t exactly the hug she’d been hoping for, but it was still good. His cheek was by her temple, his lips at her curls, and for a moment Elodie wished for nothing more than this moment to drag out for hours.

“When you collapsed in the snow, I thought you were dead,” Cullen whispered softly into her curls, his ungloved hand at the back of her head as it fisted gently in the tresses there. "I prayed harder than I have in years that we would find you alive."

Breathless, she could only close her eyes and nuzzle further into him.

“Andraste must have heard my plea. When you collapsed in front of us, I carried you back myself. Cassandra offered to help but… the thought of anyone taking you from my arms was horrifying.”

“I'm glad you kept holding onto me,” she whispered, not caring if he heard her. He continued as if he hadn’t.

“I brought you to camp, but after you mumbled a few sentences you stopped breathing.  I panicked. I pulled off my glove and,” his naked palm closed over the side of her neck, his thumb just under her chin, and he tilted her face up so that he was partially cradling her in his arm. Elodie kept her eyes closed, her heart pounding as her fingers tightened at his fur mantle, and Cullen let out an astonished breath.

They had never been this close before in the daylight. Elodie ached for it, yearned to have Cullen dip forward to bring his mouth down to hers. His thumb traced a long line on the underside of her jaw, and Elodie still kept her eyes closed, imagining what he must look like. Were his eyes trained on her mouth? Her lips parted in anticipation.

“I felt for your pulse,” Cullen whispered. “You had one, a faint one, just like your breathing. You were fading but still with me, and I thought to myself… maybe... I...”

He paused, stuttering in his retelling, and Elodie’s eyes fluttered open. He was looking down at her, his brow furrowed, his expression pained. His thumb drew down the length of her throat, and she tried to recall if Cullen's bare skin had ever touched hers before this instant, but she could barely focus on keeping her knees from giving out beneath her. Elodie whimpered at the sensation, while still holding his gaze. Cullen gasped at her noise, losing his mask of composure for one sweet moment, and Elodie drew in her lower lip between her teeth in anticipation of what was to come. She’d barely dared to do this much inside of her own dreams, and had not expected him to touch her so sweetly now.

It left her stunned, immobile, and pliable in his arms. This was dangerous.

Cullen's fingers moved back to tangle in the small curls at the nape of her neck, his gaze flicking down to take in Elodie’s parted lips, her upturned chin, her bare throat. The sensitive skin there positively glowed from his attentions, turning pink from the way he had drawn the pads of his fingers lightly over her pulse.

“You thought?” Elodie prompted, her voice barely audible. Cullen blinked, refocusing on her eyes.

“I thought-” he stopped, clenched his jaw, and then said roughly, “You told me that I protected you in your dreams, back when we spoke of such things in Haven."

"Yes."

"Therefore... I wanted to try to do that for you, after Haven fell.”

His thumb pressed lightly up, tilting her head back, and Elodie closed her eyes automatically. She parted her lips, fully expecting Cullen to press his mouth to hers, but instead she felt coarse stubble at her temple. She was grateful that he had his other arm around her back and shoulders, because if Cullen hadn’t been holding her when he kissed her she would have collapsed.

He pressed three slow, firm kisses to the side of her face, trailing them down over her temple and caressing the scar he'd traced in Haven's snow. When Cullen pulled away, Elodie realized belatedly that he was speaking again. It took her a moment for her brain to catch up.

“-when he took you from my arms, pulling you onto the cot, Cassandra at his side. She shook you awake, and the apostate healed the frostbite on your ears, and the only way I even knew that I reached you was that you had whispered my name.”

“I did?” she breathed. Dipped in his arms like this, cradled like this, Elodie felt like they were a still frame, a frozen moment in a dance neither of them wanted to ever let end.

“You did.” Cullen stayed close, and she kept her fists tight in the fur at his collar as his whispers sent shivers down her spine. “You whispered it over and over, like you were calling for me. Which is why I thought that you remembered what I did.”

“W-was this why you avoided me after I woke up?” she asked, finally opening her eyes. Cullen glanced away, guilty, and that confirmed it for her. “You were afraid that I was going to tell you off for indulging in a kiss.”

He was close enough to draw him near, close enough to taste, if she could just keep him from pulling back. She allowed herself a glance down at his scar and let out a tiny breath. She whispered her musings aloud before her brain could think to keep it to herself.

"Oh Cullen, how could I ever be angry about something so sweet?"

Cullen straightened slightly, and his ungloved hand shifted on her neck. His eyes came back to hers, narrow and surprised, as if he were trying to figure out whether or not she was extending an invitation or offering up forgiveness. He remembered himself or lost his will, one or the other, and he stepped away from her so quickly that she was reminded of the first time she’d touched a stray ember from the fire without a cloth. She staggered a bit as he set her aright, but then found her balance as her feet steadied beneath her. He cleared his throat, took another cautionary step backwards, and bent to pick up his dropped glove.

Standing there, staring at his glove as if it were a tiny wounded animal, Cullen looked so bothered at the memory that Elodie regretted bringing the kisses up in the first place. It was a lovely thing, what he'd done for her in the snow. In fact, it was something Elodie would treasure from here on out, the secret devotion with which Cullen had tried to protect her, even in her unconscious dreams. But he looked as if it was unbecoming of him to have done so, as if he were the worse for having confessed it to begin with.

_Vulnerable._ Elodie realized it in an instant, her chest growing cold. The Commander looked vulnerable.

Cullen glanced around himself, looked to the floor, and when he grabbed the letter from where it had floated to a crumpled heap Elodie moved to rejoin him at his side and reassure him. Before she could reach him, however, the door behind her opened slowly enough for both Elodie and Cullen to turn from one another and act as if they had been doing anything else.

“Commander,” a runner, one of Josephine’s messengers, moved into the room to the Commander’s side. “Inquisitor,” she acknowledged Elodie with a dip of a bow on the move. “I have your morning mail, ser.”

“I… yes, of course. Set it on the desk.”

“Right away, ser,” the messenger said, setting down a satchel and taking out several envelopes that she aligned neatly on Cullen’s desk before the chair, to the left of a teacup and quill. Elodie wondered absurdly if he ever accidentally went to dip his quill in his drink instead of his ink, as she sometimes did when she was up late writing. The messenger bade them goodbye and left them, the room returning to its previous stillness in the late morning hour.

It took them a second to recover. Both of them were breathing heavily as if they’d just been caught doing something they shouldn’t have, and Elodie still hadn’t said what she’d come here to say. She stepped forward, braced enough by the ghost of stubbled kisses to finally tell him how she felt... but Cullen’s expression stopped her.

He looked as if he were questioning himself, the way he looked when Elodie watched Leliana and him argue over how best to handle a situation that demanded both forces and discretion. One hand went out behind him, resting on the desk’s surface, and the other came up to drop his glove onto the desk. Elodie saw how shaky his fingers were before he clenched them into a fist at his side. Looking around herself, she realized just how cramped this office space actually was, when you got down to it. It was closed-off, walled-in, and no amount of candles could change that.

“Shall we continue with your letter?” Cullen asked, and the way he brought his eyes up in stoic willfulness halted her musing.

Elodie frowned, then moved over to his side as she'd meant to do before. She shook her head.

“Not for a bit, not just yet. If you could put on your glove, Cullen,” she said gently, her voice no longer an order. “I’d… like it if we could take a walk. Get some fresh air together. What do you think?”

He paused, considering what she’d asked. Elodie reached out, touching the tip of her index and middle fingers to the back of his hand. He relaxed it, slowly at first and then all at once, exhaling as he did so. She wished she could slide her fingers through his, palm to palm, and lead him out onto the battlements with her hand in his. But now wasn’t the time for touching. Cullen needed something else from her, some space while he righted himself in his own feelings.

"Just a walk?" he asked, and then Elodie watched as he swallowed hard. She dropped her hand away from his, assuming what she hoped was a relaxed expression. As Cullen wriggled his fingers back into his discarded glove, he added shakily, "Did you not wish to continue our discussion?"

"We can take a break," she replied, straightening her belt over her hips. "I have a strong feeling taking breaks isn't exactly either of our fortes... we could use one, together, I think."

“I would really appreciate that, actually,” he murmured.

“You don’t have to bring the letter if you don’t want to,” Elodie said when Cullen reached for it. She walked over to the door opposite of the one she’d come in through, and when she opened it, she noticed that he had taken the parchment anyway.

“I want to,” Cullen assured her. Stepping past her out the door, he looked back at her with renewed confidence. In the morning sun, the white and blue of the Frostbacks behind him offsetting the golds of his armor, Cullen looked intense and regal, even in his uncertainty. He held the door open for her and smiled at Elodie with what little energy he seemed to have. “Shall we?”

Her heart aching as her expression mirrored his, Elodie could only nod.

"Let's take a walk, Commander."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well the good news is that you know exactly what comes immediately next! Right guys? Right? ...  
> [Sorry](http://rs1143.pbsrc.com/albums/n635/mathgirl1248/Animated%20gifs/Animated%20non-SGA/Iwasthisclose_zps93b2d945.gif~c200)


	15. A Desperately Good Start

They walked at a slow pace, mainly because Elodie was trapped inside her own head, mulling over how she’d gone about this. Cullen had told her how he felt about closed spaces before she’d left Skyhold the last time, and she’d gotten emotional in the small stone-walled room. It couldn’t have been easy for him, not that she was assuming he couldn’t handle his claustrophobia or anything but-

“It’s a… nice day,” Cullen said, his voice much more cheerful than it had been back at the office. Elodie smiled to herself at his tone, but realized she hadn’t quite caught what he’d said.

“What?”

“I just was commenting on,” Cullen drew his lower lip in between his teeth and shook his head. “It’s not important.”

“Sorry,” Elodie winced. “I’m just a bit nervous still, I guess.”

“Do you want to continue with…?” he held up the letter and gave a shy smile.

“If you want to,” she conceded, uncrossing her arms. When had she crossed them in the first place? Had she done so unconsciously as they walked? It had been long enough that she should have noticed. "Should I... what should I do while you read?"

“If you want to stand beside me here, I’d like that,” Cullen said softly.

She nodded, unsure at this point of what else she’d even written. Her biggest question had been what Cullen had done that Cassandra had found so romantic, and with that riddle answered she felt a bit dizzy. Slightly satisfied. Mostly unbalanced. Elodie leaned against the battlement wall to steady herself, and she tried to be content in her Commander's company as she did so. Cullen’s back was to Skyhold’s courtyard, so Elodie could see his expression, but not what was written on the page.

He smiled as he read on, his eyes a warm liquid hazel in the sunlight. What part was he at?

Elodie grit her teeth and looked out towards the empty battlement. They were alone up here, possibly more alone than they would have been in his office. She could hear swords clang together from down in the courtyard, or maybe it was an anvil, she couldn't be sure. A chilly breeze from the Frostbacks gusted up and sent a ringlet tickling by her earlobe, and Elodie pulled it back behind her neck as she tried to keep a neutral face. Cullen gave a small laugh, and Elodie flicked a look his way.

“Sorry,” he acknowledged once he realized she was looking at him.

"What for?"

“I can’t quite read what you wrote here."

"Oh?"

"Yes. It either says ‘strong arms’ or ‘stung arse’, and it’s a little confusing.”

“Pff, you know which one I mean,” Elodie huffed, reaching out and snatching the letter before Cullen could get a tighter grip on it. He laughed, then watched as Elodie reread and grew pink in the face. “Okay,” she conceded, trying to control her flush. “This is getting messier as it goes on, and you see proof that I didn’t edit any of it because I signed my own name wrong.”

“What! How?” Cullen laughed.

“With two… It doesn’t matter. Just, just… ugh, to the void with this stupid letter.”

“It’s not stupid,” Cullen protested.

“I should just tell you-”

“Elodie.”

“-I find myself thinking of you. Of us, of how we are, of how we could be, more often than…” she stopped, unable to lie. “Well, all the time, really.”

“You too?” he asked, his voice low.

“It’s more than a distraction,” she exhaled, holding a palm to her forehead, incredulous at the fact and completely oblivious to his parallel confession. “I’ve always loved stars, always, ever since I was a little girl. So why do they now only remind me of you? In Haven, all of my calmest moments were with you. At Skyhold, my first question was for you. I rode out to Crestwood and the only thing that helped me sleep was the thought of-” she cut herself off, swallowed once, and tried again. “Wait. Cullen. What did you say?”

“I said that I, too, find myself thinking of you,” Cullen said evenly. “Often. Too often, maybe.”

Elodie could hardly believe it. So easily said, after she had geared up to say so much.

“Why didn’t you tell me so earlier?” she begged.

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You never mulled it over in your mind?” she asked, and tried her best to keep her voice level. It was difficult. Cullen pulled one hand across the nape of his neck, looking up and past the Frostbacks. "Never thought of how you'd confess?"

“I mean, I can’t say I haven’t thought about what I _would_ say, if given the chance.” He turned, walking a few paces away from her, and she pushed off of the battlement stone and followed on his heels, her hand at his shoulder. "But even now, even this, feels..." he shrugged, smiling sheepishly, but the expression fell away. Under Elodie's eyes, Cullen withdrew, just enough for her to reach out to him in desperation. "Like it isn't enough."

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” she urged. "You never guessed how I felt?"

"I never assumed-"

“You let me confess in a letter like a foolish little girl writing notes to her sweetheart during Chantry service.”

She pushed very gently at his shoulder, turning him, and backed into the stone wall behind her once he turned to face her. His eyes were bright, as if he weren’t daring to be hopeful even now, and she gave him a slow, deliberate look of supplication.

It felt more like a pout.

Still, Cullen glanced down at her lips and cleared his throat. His eyes sprang back to hers, and Elodie could tell he was adopting a stern expression out of force of habit.

“You are not foolish,” he stated firmly, “and I didn’t _let_ you do anything.”

“Tell me why you didn’t just say it.”

"Say what, exactly?"

"Cullen!"

“You’re the Inquisitor,” he said simply, taking a step forward. “We’re at war.” Another step forward. “And you…”

He was as close as he had been in the office, but his demeanor was more confident out here. Elodie wondered if it was the fresh air or her confession that had bolstered him. Before she could decide, or even debate with herself, Cullen placed one hand on the battlement wall near her hip. Elodie found that she could barely breathe.

"And?" she prompted, her heart pounding in her chest.

“And I didn’t think it was possible,” Cullen finished, his tone low. “So I kept my feelings to myself, desperate to enjoy whatever moments we had, if we had them.”

It burned in the best way, a deep scorch down her abdomen that made her feel truly alive. He looked as if he were waiting for her to respond, unwilling to move until she either told him she wanted more or wanted to stop.

In lieu of an immediate answer, Elodie reached between the two of them with both hands and folded the letter she’d written him into fourths. With a deliberately careful hand, she hooked a finger into his armor and pulled him forward by his breastplate. He narrowed his eyes, playfully suspicious, and Elodie used two fingers to tuck the letter underneath of his breastplate by his heart, just above where she knew the necklace lay.

“You would have been satisfied with that?” she asked. “Small moments, left up to chance?”

“I was, for a time.” Cullen glanced away, then back down to her. “Lately, however… I have been craving more.”

Elodie struggled to keep her feet flat. She wanted to raise up on her tiptoes, take his face into her hands, and kiss him until he was weak. She looked up at Cullen through her lashes, wanting to draw him forward as she’d done on the chess board last night.

“Then what didn’t you think would be possible?”

“I didn’t believe that you could,” he shrugged slightly, “feel _that way_ about someone like me. I didn’t know if I wanted to find out if you did.”

"Feel what way, exactly, Commander?"

Elodie drank him in, with Skyhold’s courtyard at his back and cold stone at hers. His arm was supporting himself before her, but if he bent his elbow she could reach his lips with hers easily. His curls were almost dry now, barely tamed back and smelling a bit like clove. It had to be his shampoo, Elodie mused. She wiggled the fingers still caught under his armor, and he stifled a groan when one of them caught on the leather string around his neck and pulled.

"You're really going to make me say it aloud, aren't you?"

"I very much would like to hear your feelings," Elodie begged.

"I want you," Cullen whispered in a rush, his voice raw and hoarse. "Despite everything else I should be focused on, my mind always comes back to you, Elodie. And not in the 'Commander worried for his leader' vein of mindfulness, either. That, at least, would be marginally appropriate." He shook his head, words tumbling forth. "No, I think of you in the 'Maker guide her back to me' sort of way. In the 'how would it feel to kiss the back of her hand' sort of way. In the 'what can I do to see her smile' sort of way... And I never dared to think that you could want me back as fervently as I want you."

Her heart was racing now, each beat sending crystallized adrenaline coursing through her veins and liquid bravery through her limbs. She could tell the confession had broken a piece of him apart, had left Cullen reeling. It was more honesty than he'd shown her in their relationship so far, even when he'd snapped at her in the garden. She could tell he was struggling to regain a sense of control by the way he was trying to assume his regular mask of neutrality... and failing.

His eyes contained volumes of unspoken feeling, and yet he still seemed to withdraw as she watched. As if he could not bear to pressure her even now, even in the throes of his own yearning. She knew if she told him his feelings were unrequited, he would take it in stride and maintain a respectful relationship with her. But if she told him the truth about how she was falling for him... what would he do then? A million responses danced across Elodie's mind, a million ways to draw Cullen forward, to bring him closer, to hold him to her in this solidifying moment. But only one of them felt right. 

“And yet I’m still here,” she said, raising an eyebrow in challenge as she raised her eyes back to Cullen's.

_Come and get me_ , she begged.

“So you are,” Cullen laughed, as if he recognized her expression. His brow relaxed and he drew nearer still. “It seems too much to ask,” he whispered, his lips so close to hers, and Elodie couldn’t be sure if he was talking to her or to himself but she didn’t care. He was leaning in, his eyes drifting shut, and Elodie pulled at his armor to hasten the moment. “But I want to-”

She tilted her chin up, giving an automatic, shaky groan when she felt both of Cullen’s hand at her waist, his grip gentle but firm as it held her deliciously in place. He closed his eyes and she felt more than heard his exhale as he brought his mouth closer to hers.

“Commander!”

A call from someone to their left. Their eyes flew open, and Elodie felt Cullen’s fingers clench reflexively on her waist, eliciting a squeak from her. She dropped her head back, worried. Was it an emergency? A call to arms?

Elodie blinked at the scout to her right, papers in his hand and his posture relaxed. She uttered a curse under breath at the timing and glanced back at Cullen. He was still frozen before her, staring over her shoulder out into the valley in disbelief, as if his brain was resetting. Meanwhile, the scout continued to talk without looking up from his clipboard.

“You wanted a copy of Sister Leliana’s report.”

Cullen let go of Elodie, fingers trailing along her middle as if he had never regretted leaving anything more, and he turned to the scout with a stormy expression. He took the two steps over to him, leaving Elodie cold and leaning against the battlement wall trying not to look suspicious.

“What?” Cullen demanded, his voice curt and loud. Elodie glanced away from the scene, both hands behind herself to keep steady in Cullen’s absence. The scout finally looked up at his Commander, who happened to now be looming over him with an ominous glare.

“Sister Leliana’s report,” the scout repeated, blind to the scene before him. “You wanted it without delay.”

The Commander did not answer; Elodie turned away, having no desire to witness whatever chewing out Cullen was about to unleash on the scout for his poor situational awareness. If this morning had been any indication of how stretched thin Cullen was in regards to being interrupted, this poor scout would definitely be the last straw. Elodie covered her mouth with the back of her hand and then moved to tuck a curl behind her ear. Oh Maker, she must look so suspect. The more she thought about it, the hotter she flushed, and that just made everything worse. She heard a small stuttering noise from the duo at her right, but she dared not look over.

“Or… to your office… right,” the scout said, and Elodie heard for the second time that morning the sound of a hasty retreat.

A part of her felt guilty. Cullen was notoriously busy, and she had now interrupted three of his morning routines for her elaborate confession. She looked away, unsure of how to meet his gaze after their last spoiled moment.

“If you need to-”

Cullen’s kiss caught her off-guard, a surprised gasp escaping her lips as his gloved hands tilted her face back to his and his mouth came crashing to hers. Andraste preserve her, his mouth moved in such a way that Elodie completely forgot to even hold him back.

It was harsh, an indulgence, a kiss from someone who seemed completely convinced that in the next moment she would be taken away from him. Elodie moaned despite herself, leaning forward into the embrace and moving her hands to his shoulders. She felt the tip of Cullen’s tongue trace a sweet line against her lips, and she automatically parted them to deepen the kiss. However, as soon as she did, Cullen made a noise himself and broke away.

“I’m sorry,” he said heavily, and his eyes stayed closed a moment longer as if he were savoring the feeling. He opened them slowly, gazing down at Elodie with open abandon. “That was, um,” he paused as a small, wonderstruck smile brightened his features, “really nice.”

“That,” Elodie answered, her voice soft with awe, “was better than any dream I’ve ever had.”

“Oh,” Cullen’s eyes darkened, and he tilted his head. “Good.”

He lowered his head once more, dipping into a continuation of the kiss. Elodie couldn’t keep quiet against him, not after everything it had taken to get here.

His scar tasted of honey, impossibly so, and Elodie sighed against him as one of his hands found hers. To her amazement, Cullen took her fingers and brought them to his cheek, and she could feel his jaw move as he nibbled playfully at her lower lip. Wordlessly, Cullen showed her that he wanted to be touched, wanted her to explore him as much as she liked. When she chased his tongue with hers, tentative at first, he curled his own around hers in a caress that left her breathless. He drew her in deep, playful and sensual as he chase her through the kiss. She responded in kind and drew him between her lips with a satisfied sigh, the months of wondering how Cullen would taste culminating in a delicious dance Elodie barely believed was real.

Growing bolder, she slowly thrust her hand back into his curls, dragging her fingertips through his mane with gentle scratches until she felt Cullen gasp against her. He groaned and pressed further, one of his legs sliding slowly between hers so that she was straddling his thigh. Elodie brought her other arm up to Cullen's shoulder, bending her knee to allow for the intrusion of his thigh, hooking the back of his leg with her calf to encourage him further. His tongue sought hers out playfully, darting in tiny twists that left her feeling lightheaded and curious and devoured.

She was melting. The cool air of the mountains bolstered her, calming her just enough to allow for her to stay in the moment. Her free hand came up to Cullen’s neck, holding her palm against his pulse. She could feel it, strong and quick, and it thrilled her to feel the physical proof of his excitement both under her palm and pressing insistently between her legs. His arms held her fast, his cloak and mantle once again shielding her from the outside world as he warmed her. She felt his mouth move to the corner of her lips, then her cheek, and then her scar, and she gave a whimper at the sensation.

“Elodie,” Cullen whispered against the marks of Mythal. Elodie shuddered, then drew his head to the crook of her neck with a noiseless groan.

“Say that again,” she begged.

“Elodie,” he obliged, humming a beautiful murmured vibration into the sensitive spot where her neck met her clavicle.

He pressed a chaste kiss there, a sweet extravagancy, and it tore at her. She clutched at his scalp, her body arching up against his instantly. He groaned into her neck, soft words spilling from his lips and onto her skin.

“Is this… can I… oh Maker-”

Before he could finish his thought or hear her permission, Cullen indulged. His tongue drew a small circle against her skin, following it immediately with a gentle sucking kiss before the cool of the air had a chance to hit it. She thought that would be it, that would be the end of it, and it would have been enough... but then Cullen bit down.

Elodie was already whimpering and helpless against him, trying hard to decide whether the sweetness of his mouth on her skin outweighed the tickle of his stubble against her neck. But when she felt his teeth pressing insistently into the curve of her neck, Elodie saw stars. She brought one of her hands from Cullen’s hair and covered her mouth with her palm to keep from crying out at the pleasure.

“We have to stop,” she whispered through her fingers, shaking. If he didn’t pull away, she was not going to be able to keep from dragging her other leg around his hips to fully straddle him here atop the battlements.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen answered as he withdrew his lips immediately from her throat. “I just… I’ve wanted to do that for a very,” he pulled back and gazed at her levelly, “ _very_ long time.”

“The kiss?” Elodie asked, chuckling weakly as she struggled to regain her composure, “Or the neck thing?”

“Don’t call it that,” he said, and he brought a hand up to brush the curls away from his forehead as he grimaced. “You make it sound like something worse than it is.”

“Ah… Do you have a neck thing, Commander Cullen?” Elodie prodded as she caressed his cheek with her left hand. "Shall we explore this? Shall I unbutton my blouse a bit, expose a little more-"

"Maker's breath," Cullen cursed. He blushed, his cheek and ear growing warm under her wrist as she combed through his hair with her fingers. "I'm sorry."

"I like that you have a neck thing, if it helps any," she whispered. It was true. Elodie was relishing the proof of his infatuation pressed against her. At the same time, she was trying very hard not to move lest he become aware of how intimately they were standing hip to hip and distance himself.

“I have a _you_ thing, unfortunately,” Cullen evaded, catching her hand and turning it to press a firm kiss to where her mark cut in a faded green line across her flesh.

“Why unfortunately?” she asked, grinning.

“Because I’m powerless against you,” Cullen said roughly, keeping his hand against hers so that she would continue to cup his cheek.

“I’ll be sure to remember that the next time we’re sparring together,” she promised, drawing her thumb over his cheekbone in a fond caress.

He laughed, but Elodie thought she saw a glimmer of true worry behind the gesture.

“So… what now?” she asked, part of her unwilling to admit that she could stay here for another few hours just indulging in shared touches and insinuations. She traced her thumb down over his scar and he nipped at the pad of her finger with gentle teeth.

“I vote that we try the neck thing again,” Cullen said darkly. Elodie raised an eyebrow and had to draw on every ounce of self control she had in order to keep from grinding down on Cullen's thigh. She didn't disagree, but before she could speak, he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry. Ignore that, I don't know what's come over me.”

“Cullen?”

He opened his eyes to meet her gaze.

“Do you regret this?” Elodie asked.

“N-no!” he said hurriedly. “No. Why do you ask?”

“You keep apologizing,” she said as she shrugged. “I just assumed you were embarrassed or-”

“No,” Cullen stopped her, dropping his hand away from hers and placing it back on her waist. He gave her a slow, singular shake, and she slid her palm to his neck as she bit her lower lip. “I am not embarrassed by how I feel about you.”

“You looked a bit embarrassed about the neck thing-”

“Obsession with your pulseline aside,” he growled, taking a moment to sigh and level her with earnest eyes. “I haven’t wanted someone in a long time. I haven’t felt deserving of affection for even longer. So… yes, I’m apologizing a bit too much. But it’s only because it’s hard for me to think all of the things I want to say,” he lowered his voice further, “and do to you in the moment, and not feel like I have to apologize.”

“Mmm? And what exactly do you want to do to me, Cullen?” she whispered.

“I-I don't want to violate the trust we have between us,” Cullen clarified. “I don’t want to make you regret this, either.”

“You couldn’t,” Elodie said. “I’ve wanted you for too long.”

“You have?” he asked, sounding unconvinced.

Fantasies, unbidden, rose to the forefront of Elodie's mind. The more recent ones, the harmless ones, about sleeping beside Cullen underneath of the stars came first. Then, in a flash, Elodie recalled scenes and images she had thought long-forgotten. These darker, more delicious fantasies that she'd indulged in before she'd seen Cullen as a friend, she had pushed them away back in Haven. She had kept them secret, banishing them from her mind in order to be able to look at Cullen without blushing.

And here he was, practically begging her to tell him about them.

“I dreamed of you without armor back in Haven,” Elodie blurted so that she would not say anything worse. “Did I tell you that?”

“No.” He paused, looking shocked. “You did not.”

“It’s true,” she said, beaming despite her blush. “Before we began to get close, even. I thought of holding you, just like this.”

Elodie thought about the way Cullen had been undressed in the dreams and gave a breathless laugh.

“Well, not _just_ like this.”

“Elodie, please,” Cullen responded, immediately turning to look out across the Frostbacks instead of directly at her, almost like he was trying to distract himself from the insinuation. He had a satisfied, almost cat-like smirk on his lips, though. She could tell he enjoyed hearing it, even if he wouldn't admit it in so many words. Elodie traced a slow circle along his jaw, just beneath his ear, fascinated.

It was sudden, the boundary shift. Whereas before, a brush of the hand seemed like too much to hope for, now Elodie was indulging in slipping her palm against Cullen's cheek and back into his curls. As if he could read her thoughts, or maybe because he was thinking along the same lines, Cullen's hand drew a slow circle against the small of her back.

"Please," he repeated, and Elodie didn’t know if he was begging her to stop, or warning her about what would happen should she keep detailing her inner imagery.

“Shall I continue?”

“Mmm.” It was neither an approval nor a denial.

“I could tell you how handsome I think you are,” she offered. “Or perhaps you’d like to know just how warm I feel whenever you feel the need to escort me out of the war room, your hand close to my elbow? As if I couldn't tell that you were thinking about touching me?”

He let out a desperate huff, the accusation hitting home, and Elodie smirked.

"I'll wear a scarf next time, Commander. Wouldn't want to tempt you with my neck while we're speaking of mining operations, now would I?"

“I don't know, it seems like you would be absolutely amenable to teasing me during meetings,” Cullen muttered, smiling down at her as he smoothed her curls back behind one of her ears. Elodie grinned, caught.

“You won’t offend me if you give in a bit, you know.” She looked down at his scar, wondering if he would clue into the fact that she was inviting him to dip down for a kiss. “That’s all I'm trying to say.”

“Oh that’s all, is it?” he demanded, voice gruff.

She raised her chin at him, defiant, and under his watchful eyes she tugged in her lower lip as she nodded.

“There’s no teasing here, ser.”

With a wicked, slow grin, Elodie ground her hips forward ever so slightly against Cullen’s pelvis. He groaned, low, in the back of his throat, and Elodie shivered.

“None whatsoever,” she promised, breathless, as pleasure streaked up through her thighs and washed over her abdomen in a slow ache.

“Of course not,” Cullen growled, pressing back. The answering roll of his hips, the hint of how he moved against her, the feeling of his excitement pressing hard against her thigh, all this combined in a symphony that set Elodie’s blood aflame. She could barely keep a straight face when he added, “You’re a paragon of innocence, Inquisitor.”

“A regular saint,” she agreed, dragging her fingernails lightly over Cullen’s scalp as she prayed he couldn’t see how truly affected she was.

“How dare I ever suspect you of teasing me.”

“Indeed.” Glancing down at his lips, Elodie sighed deeply. “You're much too harsh.”

"You think so?"

"Mmm. You could stand to be a touch more accommodating."

“My apologies,” he murmured.

“I don’t want your apologies, Cullen,” Elodie hinted.

“What do you want, then?”

“I can't say,” she sighed, adopting as regal a tone as she could muster with Cullen's hand straying dangerously close to her arse the way that it was. "It's not appropriate for polite company."

"Glad to hear you hold me in such high esteem," he answered, his voice barely containing a growl behind his forced civility. He was smirking down at her, his eyes heavy-lidded, and Elodie was the first to break.

"Oh Cullen, please-"

He obliged immediately, drawing her close and brushing his lips across hers as if he could no longer find the strength to deny her. She made a noise against him as her further begging was muffled, and a tiny part of herself wondered at how vocal she was around him in every sense of the word. What would she beg him for if they were behind closed doors? What would she order him to do to her if they could lock themselves away? His teeth nipped at her cupid’s bow, and Elodie mewled against his mouth. He broke away when she tried to deepen the kiss with a flick of her tongue, and when her hips rolled deliciously against his.

“You asked what we should do now,” Cullen said, only slightly breathless, and he reached up to gently tuck one of her curls behind her ears. As he spoke, he stayed close to her, his tone low.

"Tell me."

“I think we should take the rest of the morning, head back to my quarters, order some tea…” he paused to drag his mouth against her skin, just under her earlobe, as if merely seeing her bare neck made it hard to resist. Elodie swore she would start wearing her hair up more often.

“Then?” she implored.

“We should go over my morning reports together.”

Elodie’s laughter surprised a nearby raven into taking flight with a caw. When she turned to look back at Cullen and poke at him for his idea of romance, he caught her mouth in another quick, desperate kiss.

“You are so beautiful when you laugh,” he murmured against her lips between light, feathery pecks. She giggled, his little kisses drawing joy from her with each caress.

“Are we allowed to kiss one another whenever we want, now?” Elodie demanded playfully, hugging him close and nuzzling her cheek against his. “Is that what our confessions mean?”

“I’d be amenable. Within reason,” Cullen answered, pulling back. “I do need to be able to get some work done at some point, and I assume you do too.”

"My work for the day is done, ser."

"I envy you," he muttered. "If we both had a free moment, believe me, I would not be suggesting we go back to my office."

Elodie leaned back slightly, the silver of her filigree vest catching and throwing a tiny speck of reflective light against his golden armor.

“You seem to be insinuating that, given the chance,” she purred, her voice soft as if she had just awoken from a long nap and was exhaling her words in a stretch, “you would never stop kissing me.”

“What a chance that would be,” Cullen said, smiling easily. He was regaining his sense of control, Elodie could see it in the way he rolled his neck and shoulders to straighten his posture. "One I'll indulge in freely after we're both more available."

"Speaking of indulging," Elodie murmured, moving forward to kiss Cullen again. Before she could deepen the kiss, though, he pulled back.

"I won't be able to stop if we keep up this pace," he whispered, his words barely audible as the breeze from the Frostbacks picked up once more. Elodie pulled her curls over her shoulder, back away from Cullen's face, and searched his expression. His brow was furrowed, his eyes smiling but guarded. Elodie realized with a deep thrum that maybe she  _did_ have a teasing thing, because she desperately wanted to push Cullen until his breaking point, until he was begging her to touch him and give him more, so much more-

But that would have to be for another time.

“So you weren’t joking," Elodie said, offering him a little smile. "You’d really like to go back and review reports together?”

“Only if you have a moment to spare for me."

"I wouldn't be a distraction?"

"On the contrary," Cullen said, rolling his shoulders back. "I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate fully if I didn’t have you nearby, reminding me that this was real.”

“You can’t say things like that and expect me not to kiss you,” Elodie threatened, leaning up on her tiptoes to nuzzle into the Commander's neck.

“Who said I expected that?”

She pressed a kiss to his skin, felt his jaw clench, and decided that she needed to be more like Cullen in this moment. Self-control, that was what she should be embodying. She shouldn't be imagining what it would be like to pull Cullen's armor off, piece by piece.

“Mmm, we should go back now,” Elodie whispered, her mouth moving against his jugular.

"Can you behave if we do?"

"No promises," she said, laughing mainly because she couldn't tell if Cullen was joking with her or serious. She pushed him gently from her, and looked up with what she hoped he could tell was a sincere expression. “I’ve taken up enough of your morning as it is.”

“I pray you’ll stay and take even more,” he said, grabbing her hand as he turned to the door behind them.

She could only huff, arousal and helpless affection stealing away her cleverness.

“I stand by my initial advice to you, what I said after our first conversation,” Cullen said cryptically as a scout passed by.

“In regards to what?”

“In regards to us kissing one another whenever we want,” he reminded her.

“Ah. Our first conversation today, you mean?”

“No, sorry. Our first one outside under the stars in Haven. Back when you thought your inner circle disliked you, when you confessed you were asking everyone to call you by your first name. I gave you some advice then, do you remember what it was?”

“Oh. That. I remember that you said something about paying attention to appearances,” she ventured.

“Exactly.”

He linked her arm through his and began to escort her back to his office.

“Cullen,” Elodie whispered as they walked, “you just spoke of appearances. You do know what this looks like, right?”

“I’m well aware,” he answered, but he sounded tense all the same.

“But… aren’t you bothered that the troops will be speaking of this openly within an hour?”

“I would prefer that our private affairs remain so,” Cullen said firmly, his shoulders straightening. “But if there were nothing for them to gossip about, I would regret it more.”

"Private affairs," Elodie said with a chuckle. "We could have picked a more private place to have our first kiss."

"It was perfect," Cullen answered, and her heart clenched.

"Yes. It really was."

They walked in silence for a moment, during which Elodie considered what Cullen was suggesting. He seemed to want her just as much as she wanted him, but they did have to remember that they were both leaders of the Inquisition. There were going to be rumors, most definitely, but Elodie felt like she could deal with most of them. Cullen however... maybe he didn't know what to expect. Maybe he was entering into this with her without knowing the full extent of the ramifications.

“We're different, you know," Elodie muttered.

"It would be frightfully boring if we weren't," Cullen answered.

"But... Cullen, it doesn’t bother you at all that I’m...” Elodie trailed off, nervous to say what she had on her mind.

“The Inquisitor?” he supplied, seemingly at a loss. She shook her head.

“No. That I'm Dalish.”

“Oh. I... Have I ever given you that impression?” he asked, holding open a door for her and helping her step around some old paintings and rubble.

She shook her head.

"To overlook it, though," she started to say. Cullen waited, listening, and Elodie had to stop to swallow and rethink her words. "It might not bother you, but it would be different, wouldn't it?"

"How do you mean?"

"Have you ever been with an elf before?" she blurted, and Cullen's eyes widened. Elodie flushed. "No! Not like, I mean-"

"You mean just, courting?"

"Yes."

Andraste's arse, now they were both blushing, both uncertain, and yet Elodie prayed that Cullen also found this as exciting a conversation as she did. Beneath the embarrassment was a thrill of anticipation. She hadn't felt this naughty since she'd asked Cullen about his celibacy vows, and back then he'd asked her to change the subject. Now... Cullen cleared his throat.

"I've never courted a Dalish elf before. Never really courted anyone, to be quite frank."

"Have you..."

He was silent, but Elodie knew he must grasp her full meaning by the way he looked up at the rafters, like they were there to offer him peace of mind.

"You're asking if I'm an innocent?"

Elodie nodded, unable to speak. She didn't know how she felt about the turn of conversation. Part of her was worried this was too personal. There was, however, a hidden part of her, the part that held the key to the locked-away fantasies involving him, that was deeply aroused by the thought.

"No," Cullen said quietly. "I've had my share of physical experiences."

She let that sink in, pleased at the way Cullen presented the information unashamedly and with a clear tone. He turned to her, tilting his head.

"How about you?"

"Yes," Elodie answered. "Only a handful of times. But I'm not exactly an innocent either."

"Would you say you know what you like?" he asked, the subject change taking Elodie by complete surprise. Her arm still linked with his, Elodie could feel heat radiating from his armor. Or maybe it was a reflection of her own blush. The tone with which he asked so personal a question, the rawness of such an inquiry, left her feeling weak. She nodded.

"More or less," she confessed in a shaky breath. "Do you?"

"I have an idea."

"Of what you like, or what you think I'd like?"

"I was speaking about my own preferences," Cullen said, in a voice that made Elodie shiver. "But I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious about yours as well."

Elodie smiled to herself, unsure of where this renewed confidence was coming from, but unwilling to question it and have it disappear.

"Do you think we'd match well in that regard, Cullen?"

"Only one way to find out," he answered carefully. She could hear her own heartbeat in her eardrums, echoing through her in its frantic rhythm. Before she could ask him to name a time and place, he added, "Sh-should our relationship progress to that level, I just want you to know I don't mind being told no. Or to stop. Or that things are too fast."

"Me neither," Elodie replied, slightly disappointed. A small part of her had been hoping this was leading up to something more than paperwork back in Cullen's office. Something that involved his desk, or possibly his chair, or maybe even the bookshelf-

"Good. That's... I'm glad we could afford each other some clarity on that matter," Cullen said, clearing his throat once more. “But back to your first question... I personally have never considered the type of differences that might come up in a relationship between…” he paused, bringing her arm back through his, then continued, “two people like us. But I can understand if you have any misgivings. I mean,” he paused, glancing down at her.

She paused with him, looking up in earnest. When it wasn't bathed in sunlight, his hair still seemed to capture the warmth of a bright day. She reached up, tousling his hair a bit, and much to her delight, Cullen grinned. However, when he spoke again his voice was hesitant for the first time since he'd read her letter aloud.

"Do you have any misgivings about us, Elodie?”

“No. So long as you're comfortable with the way things are going, I feel like this is a good start.”

“I am,” Cullen said, smiling in what looked like relief. "Comfortable, I mean. I agree, I feel the same."

"I'm not going too fast for you?"

He narrowed his eyes at her teasing, and she very nearly winked at him. She managed somehow to hold back the impulse.

"Not at present," he admitted. "Although I do stand by my initial assessment that you have a thing for teasing me.”

"It's hard not to, what with how you look at me like that when you're frustrated."

"I could not look at you at all, if you prefer?"

"Don't you dare," Elodie warned. He laughed out loud, drawing her forward to plant a kiss on her forehead. The gesture, so simple and tender, made Elodie's heart clench. As Cullen began to walk again towards the door, she added, mostly to herself, “If you care about me, that’s all that matters."

Cullen exhaled softly, as if the comment had taken him by surprise.

“I do.”

Elodie couldn’t help but tighten her fist over his cloak, hugging him nearer to her side as they walked. She wondered once again what his arm would feel like, what _he_ would feel like, without his armor. As of right now, she didn't feel as if she could get close enough to him for her liking. Elodie supposed she should be grateful they could be this close at all.

“Some people might judge us,” she hinted gently, mostly hoping to distract herself from the rather stunning mental image of disrobing the Commander. "They might judge you especially for keeping the company of a Dalish elf."

“Let them.” He opened the opposite door for them both, not letting her go.

“Some might disagree with us enjoying one another's company, you know.”

“Have them write up a list of grievances,” Cullen said, his voice a growl of a challenge, and Elodie couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “The troops could always use more kindling out in the field.”

She laughed and it was his turn to hug her more tightly to his side for a moment.

“Some might agree with our relationship rather heartily, which could be worse,” she muttered.

“If you’re talking about Varric-”

“I was talking about Cassandra!”

“Cassandra?”

She gasped, realization striking as Cullen quirked a brow at her.

“Wait! Has Varric said something to you?”

“H-he might have mentioned something about poetry once or twice,” Cullen quipped dryly.

“Please tell me that you wrote me poetry.”

“I think you’ve deemed yourself the poet in our relationship thus far,” he laughed. “What with my ‘stung arse’ and all.”

“I never should have lauded your armored physique, Commander,” she joked, pushing against his shoulder lightly.

“I’m happy that you did,” he said softly, once more reminding her of the tenderness she was drawn to, even as he adopted a stern expression for the troops saluting them as they passed on their left. Elodie ignored the tiny gasp from the one on the left, the one most likely to see that Cullen was holding Elodie close to his side as they walked. Instead of feeling worry or shame, Elodie straightened her shoulders with pride and walked on towards the door leading to Cullen's quarters.

Once the two of them were back at his office, Cullen sent a messenger to bring a kettle and some breakfast, and then set about actually going through his mail and reports. The man had been serious. He urged Elodie to stay and chat with him through his work, and it seemed as if he was content to do both things at the same time.

Elodie decided it was a nice thought, and she helped where she could, offering an extra eye on the projects she would have to okay after his initial suggestions anyway and a listening ear when a letter irked Cullen to no end. Most of the latter were from Orlesian diplomats. Typical. To be fair, most simply didn’t realize how to address a Ferelden Commander without referencing dogs or wolves. She managed to draw out an adorable surprised chuckle from him with a pun she made, and that alone made Elodie feel like her presence was justified.

After an hour, Elodie had taken control of the letter filtering while Cullen was finishing up requisitions and supply line orders. A half-finished pot of tea sat between them, and Elodie was proud of the fact that she hadn’t thrown herself at him once since their kisses on the battlements.

“What are you stirring into your tea?” Elodie asked as Cullen prepared himself a third cup and she prepared to leave, reluctantly going back to her quarters for a bit of her own work.

“Oh this?” he asked, holding up a tiny ceramic pot. “I swore I offered you some. You said no thank you.”

“I don’t remember that. I might have been distracted,” Elodie said, smirking.

“I know the feeling,” he chuckled, but she could swear that his cheeks flushed pink nonetheless. “It’s just honey,” he finally answered, taking a spoonful of the golden viscous liquid and dipping it into his tea. “I’ve always taken my tea this way, ever since I was a boy.”

“No wonder you tasted so sweet out on the battlements,” Elodie murmured, gathering up a pile of reports she wanted to file with her own from Crestwood. She was moving to the door when Cullen stood, moved past his desk, and reached out to catch her wrist.

“Hey.”

He paused, and Elodie reached up and placed one palm invitingly on his chest, the reports pressed between them.

“Yes, Commander?”

“C-could you spare some time tonight after dinner?”

“More reports you need help with?” she teased. He looked down at her hand on his chest as he chuckled, then raised his eyes back to hers in pure sincerity.

“No, I was thinking we could have a moment to ourselves. If you had the time?"

"Oh." Elodie felt the air in her lungs leave her in a rush, excitement filling her in its wake. "What did you have in mind for us?"

"Some quiet time? Some time without titles?" Cullen swallowed, then added, "It would mean a lot if you would come remind me that this isn’t all an elaborate dream.”

“I can do that,” she agreed, standing slightly on tiptoe in order to draw Cullen’s lips to hers once more.

This kiss was different than the others. It was kinder, softer, less an act of hunger than an act of promise. This was dangerous. She would stay here for the entire rest of the afternoon if she didn’t leave now. When she pulled away, they both sighed simultaneously, as if it were the hardest thing they'd had to do that morning.

“Tonight after dinner I'll be in my quarters, waiting. Come find me, Cullen.”

“I definitely will, Elodie,” he answered, tracing his thumb along her scar just above her eyebrow before Elodie finally broke herself free and left his office behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow I fly to the other side of the world for a couple weeks, and I'm sure I'll be able to update... but just in case I can't for a bit... have some much-needed indulgence between these two <3
> 
> I couldn't decide what to title this chapter. It is a desperate moment between them-- but I also like the idea of both Cullen and Elodie being too self-aware to be able to forget that a relationship in its beginning stages can leave room for a lot. They know very well that getting involved too quick can be worse than letting things progress naturally.
> 
> (also I sped-run through his romance with my first, non-canon Inquisitor, and I gotta say that drawing it out longer was muuuuch more satisfying haha)


	16. An After-Dinner Treat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tease or not, there's some things Elodie just can't help but treat herself to.

Night brought with it the impossible heat and humidity of an overweight storm heading their way. The skies around Skyhold were rimmed with pink and dark red as the sun set, and when Elodie was out walking to the tavern for a nightcap she glanced up at the sky with a shudder.

"I know it'll bring good weather, but I've always hated when the night turns red."

"Why's that?"

"It brings ill omens," Elodie said with a shrug.

“Doesn’t everything these days?” Dorian quipped, giving her a little eyebrow raise.

Nodding, Elodie tried to force a laugh, but the mage seemed to have been equally cowed by his own statement. His expression fell away as if he were in the process of realizing what he'd said and was trying to come up with a way to turn it into a lighter tone. When he didn't find anything, Elodie could see him wipe his expression clean, and she mercifully did not force the conversation. They walked on in silence until they reached Scout Harding at the door to the pub.

“Good evening Inquisitor, Master Pavus. You two here to sign up?”

“Depends,” Dorian answered. “By signing up, do you mean we are to offer you our souls via contract? Or merely put our names on the guest list to enter the tavern?”

“Didn’t know this place had gotten so exclusive,” Elodie said with a warm smile.

“Oh. No, no, it’s not, please go right in,” Scout Harding fumbled, grinning despite the pink tinge alighting on her cheek. “I was just… now that I think of it, Lieutenant Acclasi had no idea what I was talking about either. I might need to make more posters.”

“Posters for what?”

“I was going to hold an archery contest. Y’know,” Harding winked sweetly. “For morale.”

“Oh ho,” Dorian answered, smirking.

"Is that a good 'oh ho'?" Scout Harding asked.

"Most definitely."

“Aw, good. Because I was thinking if the Inquisitor signed up-”

“That it wouldn’t be a fair fight?” Elodie supplied, adopting a fake stern look. Scout Harding, looking surprised, gave a bark of unimpressed laughter. Immediately she composed herself, even though Dorian was hiding a chuckle underneath of one hand.

“I, uh, was thinking that instead people would rise to compete alongside you! Like a bonding experience. I know Lady Montilyet is constantly trying to find opportunities for us to bond together.”

“So me signing up has nothing to do with people wanting to prove how strong they are by beating me, right?”

“Well, they wouldn’t _not_ want to beat the Inquisitor,” Harding said with an exasperated chuckle.

Elodie gave up, heaving a large fake sigh.

“Alright, you got me. But only if Master Pavus here signs up as well.”

“Can’t stand to be without me for even a moment, can we?” Dorian said with a great sigh. Harding passed both Elodie and Dorian the quill respectively, and with a happy thrum of energy Elodie noted that both Krem and Sera were the direct two names above her. “There,” the Tevinter mage muttered. “Haven’t competed in a while. This should be fun.”

“Did you do archery contests as a child?” Elodie asked as she held the door open for her friend. Harding gave them a little wave goodbye, one Elodie returned immediately.

“No, I mainly competed in pageants and musical recitals at the behest of my mother. But bless you for thinking I could sling a wood shard very far.”

“You cast spells that put my arrows to shame, you know.”

"I realize."

"Do you hear me downplaying that just because I'm not a mage?" she prodded, playfully adopting a vaguely concerned tone.

Together they sat at the bar and motioned for Cabot to bring their usual. He poured out a finger of brandy for each, and Elodie set her silvers on the bar even though Cabot refused to take them… at least until after she left.

“Yes, but arrows and magic are not one and the same. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to wield my staff,” Dorian commented. He sipped at the brandy, and Elodie smirked.

“You never know until you hand it over."

Dorian narrowed his eyes at her, then raised his cup to his lips.

"I could club someone with it quite effectively I think,” she added primly.

Dorian snorted his brandy, coughing until Elodie slammed him on the back with her palm. As he straightened with as much dignity as a man choking on his drink could muster, he gave her a wry look and a twist of his mustache.

“I would very much like to see that, actually.”

“Don’t hold your breath, _gaildahlas_ , I hate close quarters combat.”

“I love it when you speak Elven to me, you tease,” Dorian accused playfully.

Elodie paused. Tease? That word brought something to mind. Something Elodie was forgetting that she’d made plans to do earlier today.

_I think you have a neck thing, Commander._

“Shit!”

“What is it?” Dorian asked, setting his drink down for the second time.

“I have to go. I forgot something incredibly important, I had to do after dinner-”

“Is it by any chance related to our handsome former-Templar?” Dorian cooed.

Elodie’s eyes widened and her words fell away as her jaw dropped open. Was she that transparent? Dorian bit his upper lip to try to conceal his smile.

"Wh-whatever would make you think that?" she tried to cover.

"Oh nothing really. Merely the fact that you've not mentioned him in the slightest, and yet you seemed to have a glow about you today. Did you successfully do the thing you were gearing up to do at breakfast?"

Elodie blushed.

“I see. Well. I suppose we should continue to speak nothing of it.”

“But-”

“Shoot away, little arrow," Dorian said without a trace of annoyance. In fact, he brought his glass up to hers as if in a toast. "I’ll find a way to entertain myself in the meantime.”

“Are you sur-”

“Iron Bull?” Dorian called, already moving away from the bar with both his and Elodie’s brandy in both hands. “How much convincing would it take to see if you could bench-press than bench? With me sitting on it?”

Elodie wanted dearly to stick around to hear the answer, but before the Qunari could respond she was already out the door.

She’d meant to be back at her quarters straight after dinner. She’d agreed to meet Cullen after dinner, right? They were to walk together, to continue where they left off, to prove this was real. A conference with Cassandra and Blackwall in regards to the Wardens had distracted her, and then Sera had pulled her aside to ask for a Jenny favor, and the day had culminated in a dinner with Dorian that had thoroughly distracted Elodie with its ridiculousness, as Dorian always seemed to do with ease.

And now she wouldn’t be in her quarters when Cullen came to fetch her.

There was no telling when Cullen would call on her, though, no telling how late he would work before meeting her or how much time would pass before he decided to send a notice. But she wanted to be available when he was. Elodie rounded a corner, sprinting through the great hall’s kitchens, and practically bowled over her diplomat having a conversation with Vivienne.

“Inquisitor! I was just-”

“Is there an emergency?” Vivienne asked, interrupting Josephine.

“I’m sorry,” Elodie started to say, but the Enchantress held up her hand.

“Your image is what people invest themselves in, what they feel the Inquisition represents. So please be aware that running in the great hall might not inspire a sense of comfort and stability with the visiting dignitaries who just watched you sprint into us.”

“I apologize,” Elodie said, feeling chastised. Josephine tapped her arm.

“You have good timing, Inquisitor. You happened to step by right as Vivienne and I were having a rather heated discussion,” the Antivan said softly.

“It was not heated,” Vivienne corrected. “Not yet.”

“We were having a minor disagreement.”

“Actually,” Vivienne paused, glancing over at Elodie. “Perhaps you could settle something for us, Inquisitor.”

Elodie looked between the two women, back and forth, confused and lost and still in a hurry. Josephine shot her an apologetic smile, and Elodie couldn't help but sigh. She tried to relax her shoulders.

"What can I do to help?"

“We were discussing whether to decorate the great hall in the style of dragons, or the style of Orlais,” Josephine stated.

Elodie paused, blinking, unaware of why in Andraste's flaming arse she should care.

But then she saw the way Josephine and Vivienne were looking at the walls, at the newly finished repairs and all of the remaining scaffolding. They were concerned about her image, about the Inquisition's image, because they cared. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Holding her composure, Elodie tried to think about her options. She really didn't like the way Orlesian style gilded everything with gold, preferring to keep the shiny things to trinkets and jewelry rather than massive curtains and thrones. But dragons? She'd only just found one of them, had been lucky to have the Iron Bull and Sera bloodthirstily at her side for the fight. It seemed almost masturbatory to decorate the hall in their skulls and quartz eggs after only killing _one_. 

She was about to say so when a glimmer of gold behind the Enchantress and the diplomat caught her eye. She glanced over quickly, just a little look, and saw Cullen leaning casually against the door to her quarters. No, not her quarters, the door leading to the war room. To Josephine’s office. Elodie's heart stopped when she made eye contact with him and she saw his lips curve into a grin. Cullen had one shoulder against the door, his arms crossed, and he seemed to be observing the trio of women with quiet amusement written plainly on his face.

But it was only a quick glance before Elodie had to turn her eyes back to Josephine. Unable to shake the imagery of her Commander from her mind, Elodie blurted the first thing she thought of.

“How about Ferelden style?” Elodie suggested.

“Wh… what?” Josephine stammered.

“Ferelden stlye, Josie. Wolves. Women with shields. Large carvings of bone and marble.”

“I… but… I just… Ferelden style?”

“Yes,” Elodie said with a laugh. “Sorry, I might be mumbling, I’m in a bit of a hur-”

“She heard you, darling, she just does not believe it. Why Ferelden? Is it inspired?” Vivienne asked, and Josephine made a few notes on her clipboard.

“No,” Elodie said, shrugging. “I just like wolves.”

“I see, darling,” Vivienne said with an eyebrow raise. “So, as for the drapes?”

“Dalish, please.”

“Certainly. And the throne?”

“Andrastian.”

The two women stared at her, Josephine’s pen poised above the paper clipped to the tablet as if she had heard wrong.

“I haven’t seen those three styles together in one place before,” Vivienne said, tilting her head. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer Free Marcher decor? Perhaps a throne to show respect to the Templars you recruited?”

“I’d be fine with anything you see fit, but you asked me what I wanted.”

“That’s true, we did,” Josephine muttered.

"Again, merely surprised at the combination," Vivienne said to Elodie. "Not that I disapprove, my dear."

“You’ve never seen these styles together before, probably because you have never worked with someone like me before,” Elodie replied, moving forward to rest her hand first on Josephine’s shoulder, and then in turn on Vivienne’s. “But I’m pleased that renovations are going so well that we can think of such things together.”

“As am I, Inquisitor,” Josephine said. Vivienne merely inclined her head, but Elodie could see a faint smile at the edge of the woman's lips.

“Believe me when I say that I trust your intuition on all matters related to the decor of Skyhold,” Elodie finished, moving past them just as Cullen opened the door to Josephine’s office and slipped inside. “So if you would prefer to see Free Marcher decor, by all means. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an errand I must run.”

Her heart pounding, it was almost impossible for Elodie to maintain an even step as she moved back and away from her two companions. Passing by visiting guests, she nodded at the greetings and bowed her head at the graceful nods. She did not look back to see if Vivienne and Josephine were still looking at her; the singular point on Elodie’s mind was how eager Cullen had looked.

Elodie fixated on a mental image, one of Cullen luring her away to a dark corner. Would he go up to her room if she asked? Surely not, surely he was too well-bred to even consider entering her quarters without them having courted for longer. But Cullen had also said he wasn’t an innocent. Maybe he was comfortable doing more. Maybe all she had to do was ask.

Elodie could feel her face burning even before she pushed past the door leading to Josephine’s office. Before she could even look around, however, a gloved hand caught her waist and drew her close. She let out a squeak and brought her hand to rest on the golden armor before her.

“Good evening, Inquisitor,” Cullen said by way of greeting, but any reply Elodie might have had was lost against his lips.

_We can kiss each other whenever we want now._

She moaned softly against him, immediately pliant, and he backed Elodie gently into the wall opposite the secondary door. Cullen was hesitating even in his boldness, she could tell. His lips trembled against hers, their touch light and sweet and unassuming even as he explored her mouth at his leisure. His hand stayed at her waist, gripping above Elodie’s hip by her belt while his other hand moved to her cheek. Elodie sighed, nibbling insistently at Cullen’s lips as she grabbed both of his hips and pulled him harder against her. Her shoulders hit the wall, and Cullen’s hand at her cheek immediately slapped to the cold granite to keep from crushing her against it.

“Did you miss me, Commander?” Elodie asked against his mouth, licking at the spots she’d nipped. Cullen’s tongue found hers, flicking easily so that he guided them back into a deep kiss before he answered.

“I did. You weren't in your quarters, so I'm glad I caught you.”

"So am I," Elodie chuckled roughly. "I'm sorry I wasn't around."

"Don't be," Cullen replied.

“Long day?”

“It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary,” Cullen said with a smile. “Long, busy, with many hours spent overseeing new recruits.”

“Did you take any breaks?” Elodie asked, settling in more comfortably against Cullen’s body as they talked.

“No. I, ah, might have been too eager to finish my work today to take any breaks.”

“Today, as opposed to every other day?”

Cullen didn’t answer, merely bit his lower lip to hide a grin.

“What’s your normal reason for wanting to finish your work?” Elodie pressed.

“To see a job completed,” he answered, sounding a bit as if that should be obvious. Elodie smiled up at Cullen in the dim candlelight.

“And today? What made you so eager to finish working today?”

“The thought of daring to do this.”

Fingers, gloveless and seeking, pushed Elodie’s shirt up and curled around her hip. She gasped at the sensation and arched into the touch as he slipped past fabric and onto skin. His fingers were warm and dry, he couldn’t have been without his leathers for long. He must have just taken them off when he snuck away, possibly in anticipation of Elodie following him. His hands, calloused and soft all at once, dragged slowly over the bare skin of her waist underneath of her shirt, pulling a moan from Elodie’s chest.

“Stop me if this is too fast,” Cullen whispered, pausing with his hand at her ribs. “I don’t want to take advantage of the situation.”

“Take advantage of it how?”

“By…”

Cullen’s mouth found hers again, desperate, seeking. When he broke away, a tortured look on his face, he still did not finish his sentence.

“You’re taking advantage by indulging in me?” Elodie asked. He nodded, and she shook her head in disbelief. “Even when I want you to?”

Cullen let out a little breath of surprise.

“Yes,” he whispered, his tone one of awe.

Elodie was practically writhing underneath of his touch. When his hand stilled, it was all she could do not to groan in frustration. Instead, seeing how uncertain Cullen was in this, she merely shook her head.

“This is not too fast at all.”

“You’re sure?”

In answer, Elodie could feel her gaze soften. Eyes heavy-lidded, she looked up at her Commander in the waning light and used both hands to draw his face down to hers.

“I could even do more,” she whispered, pressing herself into Cullen’s hands as she opened her mouth against his. Cullen was frozen for a moment, as if he hadn’t registered her consent for a moment. And then Elodie sucked at the tip of his tongue. It seemed to snap Cullen free of his surprise, and he immediately responded in kind. He kissed her with abandon, his hand growing braver as it traveled up over her ribcage and towards the swell of her breast, his thumb tracing a path along her sternum as it inched closer to-

The sound of heels. Voices. Elodie broke the kiss with a withheld moan.

“Shush. Listen,” she breathed.

Cullen froze as well, eyes clouded as he obeyed. He had to be able to feel Elodie’s heartbeat mercilessly thumping against the pads of his fingers, had to feel how her breathing was too fast and desperate. But as they both stilled, they could hear someone approaching from the great hall. The footsteps were drawing nearer, Josephine’s voice and another’s, and in a split second both Cullen and Elodie knew they would be caught. Panicked, they seemed to have the same idea at once. Elodie pushed off of the wall as Cullen opened the door leading to the tiny basement library of rare books, and they barely shut the door behind themselves before Josephine burst in to her office.

“-the Inquisitor’s schematics,” she finished, her voice muffled from the wood. Both Elodie and Cullen leaned against the door in the dark, listening as they tried to keep silent. “I’ll be drafting up a renovations schedule for you soon, Gatsi. Give me an hour.”

“By your leave then, Lady Montilyet,” an unfamiliar, rich male voice replied. The door closed, further footsteps, and a chair squeaking gently. Josephine must have gone to sit down.

“Is there any way to lock this door?” Elodie whispered to Cullen.

He shook his head, hands running over the door handle to double check.

“Remind me to commission more deadbolts,” he muttered.

“For every corner of Skyhold?” she teased in a murmur.

“Only the ones you want private for stolen moments like these.”

“So, every corner of Skyhold,” Elodie breathed against his fur mantle, but before Cullen could register what she’d said she stepped down the stairs away from him. He looked down at her in the dark, an expression of discomfort ghosting briefly across his face.

Elodie paused and tilted her head. It was gone in an instant, but it had definitely been there.

“Are you alright?” she asked him.

“I… yes.” He blinked in the dark, swallowing hard. “I’m fine.”

“Is it the small space? Because I can leave, distract Josephine, and give you time to-”

“No,” Cullen whispered, moving down the steps to meet her. He smoothed Elodie’s curls back away from her face. “No, it’s just… I forgot that your eyes did this in the dark.”

“Did… oh.”

“I didn’t mean to change the subject, Elodie.”

“Did they look like this last night? During the chess game?”

“When I blew the torches out, very slightly,” he confirmed. “It wasn't complete darkness, not like how it is now." He rushed to comfort her in a hushed flurry of whispers. "But I don’t mind it! Not at all, I just forgot about it momentarily, and it surprised me.”

It wasn’t something Elodie though much of either, if she were being honest. Elven eyes reflected low light, much like a predatory cat’s, and she was very rarely reminded of it. She turned her gaze away out of politeness, figuring Cullen must have been disturbed by how animalistic she looked. At least in the dark he couldn’t see her blushing.

“There are candles we can light further down so that my eyes don’t look so off-putting.”

“They’re not off-putting at all.”

“No?” she brought her gaze back up to his, as if daring him not to flinch a second time.

He didn't. He shook his head, and in the gray and black of the dark Elodie could see his pupils blown wide as they could to take in the stairwell. Human eyes, ineffective, smiling at her even though he couldn’t see her face.

“No. They’re beautiful.”

She exhaled, too warm, and the tips of her ears twitched happily.

“If we go further down, sounds won’t carry. If you wanted to… talk more easily. Just until Josephine leaves.”

“Now that I will agree to,” Cullen answered, his hand fumbling to find hers in the dark. When their fingers interlocked, palms together, he sighed happily.

Maker, Elodie wasn’t ever going to get used to how good his skin felt against hers.

Only when they reached the bottom of the steps did they let one another go. Cullen stood to the side as Elodie moved to the desk in the middle of the library. She figured that she’d find a match somewhere in the desk, and it only took her looking through two drawers to discover she was right. One by one, she went around lighting the candles and illuminating the space filled with rare books.

“There we are,” she said, her voice low. “Much better, wouldn’t you say?”

“Is this where you suggested I go when we first got to Skyhold?”

“Ah, yes,” Elodie said, smiling at the memory.

“I can see why you thought I’d enjoy it. I haven’t seen a copy of _Tales of the Destruction of Thedas_ since I was in Kinloch Circle.”

“Cullen?”

“Mmm?”

He seemed distracted by a particular book that he pulled from the bookshelf.

“Were you going to kiss me that day in the courtyard?”

Cullen looked up immediately, the book in his hands forgotten. She could see his jaw clench in the buttery glow of the candles, his eyes a molten gold reflecting the flames. His shoulders straightened, and she saw his hand move like he wanted to rest it on the pommel of his sword.

“Yes.”

"Could you tell that I wanted you to?"

He gave a little laugh.

"Yes."

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Many reasons. The primary one being that taking you in the courtyard hardly seemed like the appropriate response. Not after as heavy a conversation as the one we had.”

He turned his attentions back to the book in his hands, and Elodie could barely breathe.

“You… you thought of _taking_ me?” she whispered.

He dropped the book, barely catching it before it hit the ground. Cullen immediately snapped his gaze back to hers, worry written plainly on his features.

“I’m sorry, I- that was not-" Cullen paused, inhaling shakily.

"A bit bold of you, don't you think."

"Maker take me, I don’t know why I said that. Forgive me, Elodie.”

“No, no,” she tried to chuckle, then tucked her curls resolutely behind her ears as she moved around the desk to him. “I mean unless you _didn’t_   actually want to take me in the courtyard?”

Cullen snapped his jaw shut, blushing furiously, but didn’t refute it.

“Oh. I see. So you did in fact think about it, secretly, while I stepped forward just like this?"

He glanced over at her, at the way she reached for him, disbelief and suspicious softly glazing his features. But beneath that, Elodie saw a faint glimmer of hope.

"Would you believe that I imagined it too?" she whispered.

Cullen's brow twitched.

"Believe me," Elodie purred. "I like that you entertained the thought, even if it was just for a moment.”

“You do?”

“Oh yes. It’s incredibly endearing.”

“That's a bit hard to believe,” he confessed, his voice light but his meaning clear. He wasn't sure she was being serious, and Elodie leveled him with a warm stare.

“Trust me. Knowing that you want me as much as I want you is endearing.”

“Ah.”

Cullen set the book back down on the shelf and wrung his hands in front of himself.

“You…” he paused, then started over. “I feel as if we should talk about ourselves a bit more. Before we do or admit anything further.”

“Can I touch you while we do?”

“Maker’s breath, Elodie,” Cullen cursed again, one of his hands moving to scrape the back of his neck. He glanced to the side, off to where he’d set his book.

“I'm sorry. I just meant-”

“Come here.”

Elodie stepped forward, hesitating in the dim light, until she was only a few inches in front of Cullen. He still would not look at her. It was as if he would lose control and _take her_ if he did, and the thought thrilled Elodie to no end. She reached for him, and when Cullen stepped forward to allow her hands to find purchase on the fabric draped over his chest, Elodie sighed happily. His arms curved loosely around her shoulders and waist, and he planted a tender kiss on the part in her hair as she snuggled into his chest.

“Isn’t this nice?”

“Mmm,” Cullen muttered, nuzzling her bangs out of his face. “Are you alright if we speak frankly?”

“Always,” Elodie said.

“I have had a total of three partners over the course of my life. All three were acquaintances or colleagues of mine. I have never visited a brothel, except when I’ve needed to collect a drunken companion or two.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It was not,” he grumbled.

“Well, I’ve only had two partners. Never been to a brothel either, could never afford one.”

“Did you actually want to go to one?" Cullen asked, and he sounded a bit taken aback.

Elodie shrugged in his arms.

"When I was fighting my Keeper, I entertained the thought once or twice while we traded. What would she do if I snuck away from the group, if I disappeared for a few hours and found a cozy little spot in between someone's sheets for coin."

"Were you lonely?"

His tone was no longer surprised. It had warmed, changed, shifted into something pleasant and comforting. Like he understood what that was like.

"I... yes," Elodie said, nuzzling closer to Cullen and hoping that he couldn't see her brow furrow. "Plus, it was forbidden, so of course it held a little mystique. Everyone seemed to treat each other kindly, too, from what I could see in the street."

"The people there seemed nice, whenever I went, I'll give them that.”

“They’re paid to be personable, I would assume,” Elodie giggled. Cullen swallowed hard.

“Who were they?” he asked, one hand trailing up and down Elodie’s spine as they spoke. “Your partners?”

“One was a friend from another clan we traveled with. The other was just a boy in a local town.”

“Just a boy?”

“Yes,” Elodie sighed, shrugging in Cullen’s arms. “I told you I fought with my Keeper, right? I was in a rebellious phase, wanted to have the experience more than I wanted to wait. I don’t regret it, but it wasn’t romantic.”

“Sounds like my first.”

“Really?”

“She was another Templar, or rather, we were both training to become Templars in our near future. I was pretty young when we had our time together.”

“Did she ask you to do it, or did you ask her?”

“She asked me,” Cullen confirmed.

“I thought so.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding a bit peeved.

“I just think you’re too polite to ask during a time when you’re supposed to be focused on your studies.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered that you think so highly of me, or offended that you view me as so passive,” Cullen muttered.

“If it makes you feel any better, I like that about you.”

“The passivity?”

“The politeness, Cullen.” Elodie resisted leaning up on her tiptoes to kiss his upper lip. “I think you’re quite the gentleman.”

“Well… thank you.”

“Tell me more about your first relationship, then. Not just your first sexual encounter,” Elodie prompted, sliding her hand from his chest down to his hips. Cullen’s breathing hitched, and he let out a slow groan when her hand slowly bore down on his thigh. She wasn’t brave enough to slip closer to the apex of his legs, but touching his upper thigh was still thrilling. “Was it with the second person you slept with?”

“It was. About six months after my first… encounter.”

“Was the second girl nice?”

"Yes, both she and my first were kind people. At least, they were when we were colleagues. But then when the second girl and I agreed to pursue a romantic relationship, things changed. She was very insistent, very possessive, and I thought that was what someone should want in a partner. But it was unsustainable, and we did not enjoy each other’s company outside of the stolen moments in the dark. So I ended it.”

“Mmm,” Elodie hummed, unsure of how else to respond.

“You?”

“My first relationship was when I was very young. I was more in love with her than she was with me. And it did not last very long because of that.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Young.”

“Yeah,” Elodie closed her eyes and breathed in deeply at Cullen’s mantle. The smell of violets, so strong and dark, suffused her mind’s eye with visions of Cullen wearing only his cloak. “I was heartbroken.”

“I would imagine so,” he murmured, leaning down to press his lips onto where her scar bisected her eyebrow. “Was she nice?”

“Very nice.”

“Good."

"Why good?” Elodie asked, tilting her head.

“No reason,” Cullen laughed. “Just that you deserve to have been treated well.”

Elodie smiled wanly, then brushed a tender kiss across Cullen’s Adam’s apple. He stilled, his thigh flexing beneath her hand as he shifted his weight from hip to hip.

“Who was your third?” she asked.

“A friend- ah, more of an acquaintance, that I held in high regard and happened to be attracted to. Worked in Kirkwall as a shopkeep. Ended very quickly, then started again, then ended again for the last time.”

He gave Elodie a self-effacing smile.

“Your voice changed when you started talking about her," Elodie noted. "Was she different than the others?”

Cullen shrugged.

“We never talked much. I tried to... but… it wasn’t an emotional relationship. Which was why it ended the first time, and why it never should have begun a second time.”

“Were you ever in love with any of them?”

“I was not in a good place before I came to the Inquisition,” Cullen murmured, his hand stilling at the small of her back. “The things I called love then I could not in good faith call love now.”

Elodie pulled back in order to look at Cullen’s eyes. Such a statement deserved eye contact.

“You’re a good man, you know.”

His eyes avoided hers at the comment, as if he did not believe it, but he smiled nonetheless. Elodie stood on her tiptoes, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

“So,” she said quietly as she tried not to let her nerves show outwardly. “Tell me about what you like.”

“I-in a person?”

“In someone you find attractive.” She dipped her gaze lower, her lashes heavy. "Someone you're drawn to, physically."

“Elodie…”

“I can tell you first?” she offered, her voice tremulous. Their eyes found one another's in that moment, and Elodie prayed that he could tell that she was excited and not scared. His eyes softened, or maybe it was the slight breeze blowing through the cold stone library that flickered the candlelight and cast shadows across their faces. Cullen looked hungry, his stare heady and indulgent. He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement, and Elodie pushed him.

His shoulders hit the bookshelf gently, his armor creaking as he let her move him. Cullen let out a little grunt when Elodie pressed herself against him, trapping him against the wood and paper. Giving him a self-satisfied smirk, Elodie took a deep breath.

“I like that you let me do that."

"Believe me," he groaned. "So do I."

"I like sweetness.”

“Like the honey this morning?” Cullen asked, breathless. Elodie gave a throaty laugh.

“I didn’t mean literally, but that’s a good answer. And an even better memory.” She watched as Cullen blushed, one brow quirking as if he were struggling to maintain a neutral expression. “Creativity, that’s very good in a partner too,” she giggled. Cullen seemed pleased, if she were to judge based off of how his lips curled and drew his scar tight. He seemed to grow brave; his right hand strayed further down to timidly fondle her arse.

“I see,” he murmured, his palm squeezing over the curve of one buttock, his long fingers gripping her tight. Elodie could barely keep her composure. He was looking at her as if trying to read her for signs of indecision, signs she wanted to stop.

“Mmm. Careful, Commander.”

“Sorry,” Cullen replied, immediately placing his hand back at her waist.

Elodie didn’t tell him that she only warned him because she wouldn’t stop him should he grab her with both hands. She didn’t admit that she wanted his fingers to reinstate themselves on her arse underneath of her breeches, his palm grazing against skin as he pulled her atop his hips. She didn’t trust herself not to beg for this to move faster.

Instead, she tried to keep them both on track as they were.

“It’s okay. Would you like me to tell you more?”

He nodded, his hands flexing at her waist.

“Alright,” Elodie inhaled through her nose as she bit her lips. “I like spontaneity, patience, and…” she moved one of her hands to Cullen’s gorget, wriggling her fingers so that she could use his armor to pull him forward. When his lips parted, when she could tell that he was anticipating a kiss from her, she gave a little noise of pleasure.

“And what, Elodie?” he implored, his voice tight.

“And someone who lets me tease them,” she finished. Her lips curled into a smirk, and as Cullen sighed she flicked the tip of her tongue against the scar on his upper lip. He gasped.

“Y-you do this so easily,” he muttered, his tone almost accusatory.

"Do what?"

"This. Everything about this situation, you do it like it's second nature," he blurted.

“Only because I’m comfortable around you,” Elodie replied.

“Comfortable,” he repeated, grunting a bit as he adjusted his weight, shifting it from leg to leg. “Right.”

“Are you not, Commander?”

He paused and narrowed his eyes at her in the dim light. Elodie could see the muscle in his cheek work as he bit down whatever response he had at the ready. She arched slowly against him, grinding her hips slowly across his in a languid circle and brushing against the hard proof of his arousal. His eyes fluttered closed for an instant, and Elodie wondered if Cullen was praying for salvation… or possibly for further corruption.

“You’re sweet for allowing me to cause you discomfort, Cullen,” she whispered. “I love that I can tell how much you enjoy touching me.”

He scoffed, his eyes flinting as he stared her down. He looked torn, caught between two difficult decisions. Would he act, or would he endure?

“You enjoy seeing me like this?”

“Like what?” she played, and as she smirked Elodie reached up to brush his curls back away from his forehead. Under her fingertips, she could feel the glow of his flushed skin, and it spurred her into further flirtation. “I have no idea what you’re on about, _ma’av’in_.”

Cullen groaned, pulling her forward before she could joke further. His lips crashed against hers, his hands going to her shoulders to pull her harder to his chest. She moaned at the kiss, heard her moan echoed back to her as Cullen sighed, and she drew him deeper.

When she felt Cullen lean back against the bookshelf, Elodie grew braver. In a moment of passion, she brought her leg up to rest a knee on the shelf by Cullen’s hip, bringing her own heated responsiveness into direct contact with his erection as it strained against his breeches. Cullen had to feel how warm he made her, even through the layers of fabric separating them. Elodie tried to imagine how he would react if she began to slide against him. What would he do if she started to work herself on his hip? Would he stop her? Or would he buck up against her, frantic as a wayward teenager, just as eager to take everything in a stolen moment as she was?

As if he could read her thoughts, Cullen groaned once more, a noise of surprise and arousal, and Elodie wondered if this was actually too fast. She broke away in order to ask his consent.

Cullen didn’t allow it. She tried to lean back, but his hand found her cheek, tangled in her hair, hooked on the back of her neck. He kept her flush against his chest, his hips rising up to crash against hers. Her fingers strayed from his armor and moved down to his waist. Dizzy, their mingling lust a mist that pervaded her mind, her breaths coming practically in a pant, Elodie kissed up into the Commander’s mouth as he held her immobile.

“Sweet Maker,” he murmured against her lips.

“I do, by the way,” she whispered back urgently between kisses. “I do like seeing you like this. Overwhelmed, rough at the edges, so fucking hopeful- because that’s how you make me feel too.”

“Turn your head,” he ordered, his voice low and gentle.

“Wh-what?”

“Turn. Your head,” Cullen repeated against her mouth.

Elodie obeyed immediately. She broke her lips from his and dragged her curls away from her neck to reveal her skin. He watched her, dilligent, cautious, eyes hungry and dark. Elodie felt a twinge of eager nerves in her sternum, like the feeling of tying her hair back before a hunt.

“Cullen…”

“Undo the top button of your blouse.”

Her heart racing, Elodie tried to say something, but nothing came out. She was excited, far more than she thought she’d be, at the way Cullen had just dared to speak to her.

Originally, back in Haven, she’d fantasized about him being rough with her. She’d heard Cullen bark orders and shut down refusals, and it had given her a dark thrill to think of him demanding things of her in some dark corner. She'd imagined his hands clamping over her wrist, holding her in place, his teeth clenched as he summoned obedience from her.

But she’d never imagined that Cullen would be so soft in person.

“Elodie,” he started, his eyes betraying how her pause had shaken his confidence. “If this isn’t okay-”

He cut himself off as Elodie brought one hand to her blousefront and popped the first button free. Cullen’s honeyed gaze was glued to her clavicle, and she watched his tongue slowly dart out to lick his lower lip. Elodie’s hand hesitated by her second button, and then she gave in and slipped that one open as well. She could visibly see Cullen’s chest rise and fall with his shocked intake of breath. His eyes snapped back to hers, emotional even in the dark.

“Keep going,” he breathed, his tone hopeful and innocent. “Show me more.”

How could she refuse?

Button by button, she popped the little pearls on her black blouse free until she reached the loose vest around her waist. The vest draped silver filigree wings across her back, and cinched thin fabric about her waist. And right now it was preventing her from pulling her shirt off completely for the Commander to see her in only her silken undergarment. She moved to start unlacing her vest, but sturdy fingers stopped her own trembling ones.

“Wait. This is enough for now,” Cullen whispered, and before Elodie could assure him that it would take no effort to undo her vest, his fingertips were against her collarbone. “Maker’s breath, Elodie,” he breathed, at once both a curse and a prayer. She almost closed her eyes against the sweetness, but didn’t for fear that she would not see whatever Cullen did next.

Light, fluttery, like blades of grass on bare skin, Cullen slipped Elodie’s blouse over the crest of her shoulders. She straightened up under his touch. Her blouse fell open, leaving only her undershirt between the two of them. The cold air kissed at Elodie’s nipples, drawing them taut against the sheer white slip that wound about her breasts, and Cullen didn’t pretend that he didn’t notice.

Bringing his eyes to hers, he smirked.

“Do you really want me to indulge?” Cullen asked huskily.

“Oh please,” Elodie begged, uncertain what she was even asking for but absolutely sure that she wanted whatever Cullen had to give. His mouth was at her neck in an instant, brushing gentle kisses down where the heat of her pulse beat rapid, down where the curve of her neck met with her shoulder, further down towards her front where her clavicle hollowed. One arm snaked behind her lower back, curving to crush her against his chest. The other stayed at her waist, his fingers digging in tight. Cullen nipped at the silk that bound Elodie's breasts beneath her blouse, his hot breath teasing her nipples into finer points. He didn't take her breasts into his mouth, even as she bowed upwards to try to encourage him to. Cullen ignored her chest and moved his lips to her other collarbone, one of his hands pulling her curls free so that they hung loose down her back. She gasped against him, leaning back to stare at the cobwebs above her in shock.

His mouth was exquisite torture, and better than any dream she'd had so far of him.

Coming back up to nibble on her jawline, Cullen let out a satisfied moan. It was a tiny noise, one that might have been lost on the waves of Elodie's own low, spirited whimpers had she not been listening intently for it, ears perked. Elodie thought she would melt from the heat of his kiss alone, and then she felt his palm move to cover her thigh and bring her knee up higher against his hip. He rocked against her as he kissed her, unhurried, his cock harder than she thought possible from just a few kisses. When he bit down, his canines pinching her skin as he suckled, Elodie twitched in his arms and had to bite her cheek to not cry out loud.

“Fuck,” she whimpered, afraid to moan, afraid to be caught.

“Tempting," he growled, "but not here. Josephine’s just outside.”

Elodie wished she could laugh, but her skin flushed hot and nervous at the prospect. If they were anywhere else, did that mean… could they…?

Cullen’s teeth bit at her pulse, and all thought fled Elodie’s mind. She keened against him, bringing a hand up belatedly to cover her moaning gasp. The threat of someone walking in, of an unlocked door, made the moment sharper. Each sensual bite brought a rush of adrenaline, one that was heightened since they risked being separated at a moment’s notice, and Cullen seemed to be fully aware.

“Touch me,” he ordered, bringing his lips up to hers in a hungry kiss. “Touch me back.”

Elodie realized that her hands were gripping his fur mantle, no longer tracing exploratory lines over his skin and scalp. She immediately plunged her fingers into his curls to draw his mouth ever closer, but they didn’t stay there for long. Elodie trailed her fingertips down Cullen’s back, forward over the fabric draped round his waist, down to the cinching of his trousers. She began to fumble with the leather ties there, trying to undo the knot with difficulty.

His gasp said everything he couldn’t, and Elodie smirked despite herself.

“Something wrong, Commander?”

Both of them paused unintentionally, heavy breathing and the soft shifting of fabric the only sounds in the cool cellar library. Her fingers stilled at his belt, and Cullen seemed to decide something in that moment.

“We…” he kissed her top lip, and the act shifted into a chasteness she didn’t expect. “We should slow down.”

“Why?”

“Because if we don’t stop here, then I won’t stop,” Cullen whispered.

“Is that a bad thing?” Elodie wondered aloud, brushing back his curls from his forehead.

He laughed bitterly in answer, as if the question made him uncomfortable.

“I’m not used to this,” he said softly, his tone conveying a nervousness that the glide of his fingertips did not embody. Elodie doubted he knew he was doing it; it was an almost ticklish sensation to have his fingers slowly clenching and unclenching against her curves.

“Not used to indulging in someone you want?”

“Not…” he paused, swallowed hard, then tried again while avoiding eye contact. “Not with someone I care about, no.”

Elodie’s skin flushed slowly, as if she were lowering herself into a bath of hot water from the toes up. He cared about her that much? When Cullen’s eyes fixated back on hers, she felt her jaw drop. His eyes were shaded with doubt, the full weight of his confession not lost on either of them. It was as if he felt he should not have stopped them, as if he were torn between being true to one part of himself over another. They stood there, his hand holding her knee so that she still half-straddled him, her blouse undone and hanging loose about her biceps, his curls tousled and his lips kiss-bitten.

He cared about her. Even now, even in the moment of silence, the breathless tension was diffused by a soft, shy smile from her Commander. Like he could not help but smile if he looked at her. Without thinking, Elodie brought one hand up and began to smooth his curls back how he normally styled them, pushed neatly away from his forehead. Cullen leaned into her touch, the hand at her knee pulling her even tighter against him as he groaned.

“I’m not very good at this, am I?” he muttered.

“Shh. Don't say that,” Elodie answered. "It’s okay to feel a bit shaky at first, and I happen to think you are _very_ good.”

He gave an exhale at her playful tone, a noise that sounded like he was trying to laugh. He cleared his throat.

“If I seem unsure, it’s only because it’s been a long time since I’ve wanted _anyone_ in my life. I wasn’t expecting to find that here within the Inquisition.” Cullen leaned further into her soothing touch. “I wasn't expecting to find you.”

“I’m glad you did,” Elodie said, her heart tight in her chest. "I don't know what I would have done without your friendship."

Cullen's hand moved to cover hers briefly, his brow furrowing as his eyes conveyed almost a sadness at the comment.

"Are you sure you don’t mind if we stop?”

“You’re not suggesting it indefinitely, right?” Elodie asked.

“No! No,” Cullen clarified. “Just putting… certain things on pause.” He brought one hand to where her fingers were still loosely tangled in his breech laces. "Like this, for example. It’s definitely not that I don’t want to, but-"

“You want it to be elsewhere. Another time.”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re on the same page. That’s good. We’ll take this slowly, maybe go for a walk once we hear Josephine leave the office,” Elodie said, her voice steady as she combed soothing tracks against Cullen’s scalp. “You and I… I totally understand.”

“Mmm.”

“I care about you, too, Cullen. You must know. Even if we don't go further, I'll still feel the same way.”

Cullen’s brow tightened, and Elodie wondered if he was caught off-guard by the ease with which she admitted it. She smiled, shrugging her blouse back up over her shoulders.

“Wait,” he blurted. The hand not at her knee moved to slip against her ribs, just beneath her blouse, just above her vest. Elodie gave a shuddering exhale, and she bit her lip to keep from making any noise. Cullen palmed the curve of her ribcage, his hand large and heavy just beneath the slight swell of her bosom. She tried to remain neutral in order not to pressure him further. But _damn_ did she want to reposition his hand a mere few inches higher. If she did, he could cup the weight of her breast fully in his palm, his thumb in a perfect position to work her nipple into a tight, pebbled nub of sensitivity. All thoughts fled when he looked back up at her almost sheepishly.

“What's this?” she asked with difficulty as she refocused. “Don’t tell me that you changed your mind?”

“No,” he said with a small, hesitant laugh. “But… I want to feel your heartbeat while I kiss you. If that's alright.”

Elodie felt as if she would never be cold again, so deeply did Cullen warm her with his words. Her vallaslin surely stood out stark beige against the pink in her cheeks, even in the dark of the shadows cast by the cobwebbed candelabras she’d lit. She could never have guessed he would be this sweet in the little moments, could hardly believe that this was the man who glared down at recruits who fell out of morning exercises, the man who sneered in disdain when the merest hint of an ambassadorial dinner party was mentioned over the war table. She had assumed he would be gruff with her. Still, Elodie sensed instinctively that he still held the potential to be ruthless in his devotion, if given the proper encouragement. If she were honest, a part of her wanted to draw dominance from him like a nectar, pulled ever so carefully from the center of a delicate honeysuckle blossom. But his tenderness, however unexpected, was just as delicious in its own right.

She wanted all of Cullen, Elodie knew in that moment. Breathless and prone, she wanted his demands and his prayers, his gasps and his growls. She wanted this man more than she'd realized and the act of facing such magnetism left her restless and frozen. Unable to move, unable to do more than make a sound, Elodie gave a pitifully eager warble in answer. She could feel Cullen's fingers spread wider, cover more of her skin, and settle against the grooves of her ribs.

“Yes,” Cullen chuckled as he leaned in to press his lips to her cheek. “Just… like… that.”

She would have laughed, but all further noises were captured by Cullen’s mouth on hers. Elodie stretched under his palm so that she could wrap her arms about his neck, her heart pounding quick and desperate. He kissed her languidly, relaxed in his slowness, until she heard a door above them open and close.

Had an hour passed already? Or only a few minutes? She broke the kiss with difficulty.

“I should…” Elodie cleared her throat, tried again. “Want me to go scout the area for us, Commander?”

“By all means, Inquisitor,” Cullen said, eyes dancing with laughter and unslaked lust.

A dark thought, a very distracting one, crossed her mind. She could stay down here in this private vault, she could stay and push Cullen to his limit until he broke and straddled her on the cold floor, his hands behind the curve of her neck to keep her head from hitting the stones as he-

“Here let me, um,” Elodie fumbled with her blouse buttons, extricating his hand from inside her shirt as she lowered her leg to the floor. "Get fixed up."

When she was presentable, Elodie fluffed her curls and glanced up at Cullen with questioning eyes.

“Well, Cullen? What do you think?”

“I... think you're beautiful.”

“No," she laughed quietly. "I mean, thank you, but not what I was looking for."

"Tell me what you're looking for, because I fear what I'm actually thinking may not be what you want either."

Maker he had no idea.

"Do I look suspicious to you?” she asked breathlessly.

“What would that look like, pray tell?” Cullen teased. He reached out and tucked her bangs back behind one ear. “Slightly mussed? Lips pink? A faint blush along your neckline?”

“Yes, all of that would look suspicious.”

“In that case, you're not nearly conspicuous enough,” he postured, straightening his own fur mantle and adjusting a leather strap on his pauldron. It was a strange gesture to see him do without his gloves. He looked up at her and narrowed his eyes. “I’d say you could stand to be kissed a bit more, actually, now that I’ve gotten a good look at you.”

He reached halfheartedly for her wrist, tugging her back to his chest, and Elodie giggled a bit louder than she'd meant to.

“Shush,” she chided, even though she'd been the one to make the noise. She twisted her arm gently, swatting at his breastplate with loose fingers. “So, I’ll go up, make sure it’s clear, and meet you outside of your office in a few minutes?”

“Why outside of my office?”

“For an evening walk of course,” Elodie said, already moving to climb up the stairs. "Maybe we can look at the stars, and I'll tell you this story Dorian told me at dinner. Together we can try to figure out if it's true or make-believe."

“You’d like to take a walk together?” Cullen asked. "After all of this?"

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“Oh I don’t- I mean, I just was hoping you didn’t have to rush off, but I know how busy you are. I wasn’t going to ask you for more if this was all you- if you had previous engagements, I mean.”

Elodie turned on the steps, halfway up, and gave him a little smile.

“You have my full attention for as long as you like tonight, Commander. You should take full advantage of that.” She raised an eyebrow, and Cullen responded by shifting his weight between his hips and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked like he was trying to discern if she had deliberately chosen that phrase to taunt him, or if she was being serious. Elodie covered her smile with the back of her hand, then gave him a little wave. “Don’t forget to blow out the candles before you come and find me. I'll see you momentarily.”

“It won’t be soon enough,” Cullen said softly as she turned to go.

She couldn't be certain, but as she shut the door behind herself, Elodie thought she saw Cullen pick up the book that had interested him and tuck it under one arm. Fondness suffusing her entire being, she left in search of her diplomat, intent on giving the sweet blonde in the cellar library a chance to slip away unseen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [All of my Elven is taken from the Project Elvhen series by FenxShiral on AO3. They're fantastic, I will find myself just reading about the linguistics even when I don't need to know a specific vocabulary word. They put in so much work, it is AMAZING.]  
> ***ELVEN WORDS USED***  
> gaildahlas = "embrium"; used like "sweetie"  
> ma'av'in = "my mouth"; used as a personal endearment, with some sensual implications
> 
> \---
> 
> I like to think that Elodie and Dorian have been traveling so much together that they have a bit of rapport with endearments. But Elodie saying that to Cullen is a slip, definitely a bit too eager for her own good. The Commander needs a little more warming up to the idea, I think. Not that he understood what she said anyway ^^;
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you for your patience on the next chapter! My vacation was the best ever!! Ready to get back to work and back to these two <3 And also, I love the dragon style, whether I've killed one or all of the dragons haha.


	17. Leaving And Staying

The following week was a blur. Each night, Elodie found time after dinner to steal away for a walk with her Commander, a walk that usually ended in a breathless kiss pressed against his office door. A walk that went no further than the kiss, too, even though both of them seemed to yearn for much more. Almost every night, once the heavy wooden door to his office clicked shut, Elodie could hear Cullen give a ragged sigh that bordered on a groan. She'd leave with that noise on her mind, back to her quarters where stacks of papers excited her far less than Cullen's straying, playful fingertips.

He  _had_ to know she was ready whenever he said the word. She made it clear that she would never be the one to push the boundaries first, would never disrespect him in that way. Cullen had taken to grabbing her wrist and putting her hands where he wanted them, like the top of his thigh or the curve of his arse. But he never said a thing to imply he was ready to go further.

And so they stayed the course, grinding in secret for a stolen hour or so, walking hand in hand when the moonlight and torches illuminated them strongly enough to be recognized. It was almost like they were runaways about to be caught at any moment, and Cullen set the pace as he saw fit; he demanded nothing except Elodie's pliant mouth and eager fingers to go where he beckoned and stop when he stopped. Once, tugging at her blouse tie, he accidentally exposed her undergarments to the night sky in his desperation, and Elodie was certain this was going to be the breaking point. She was positive he would succumb, tear her clothes off of her, and drag her back into his office for a full onslaught.

But he'd caught himself, caught his breath, and covered her skin back up almost apologetically. It was maddening and beautiful and made her want him ten times as much.

For all the tension it inadvertently caused her, Elodie definitely did not mind. As soon as she shut the door to her own quarters, she would flop on her four-poster bed (after she shut all but one of the crimson curtains) and relax. In the privacy of her own quarters, she imagined what Cullen's hands would be capable of if he did not keep them from where they desperately both wanted them to go.

Knelt over a pillow, her knees tucked up to her stomach, her face and shoulders deep in her pillows and furs with her hands reached back to slick through her own desire, Elodie found her pleasure easily. She did not even conjure up any sordid fantasies as she had in Haven when she sought release; instead, she imagined Cullen wide-eyed and begging beneath her, rescinding his boundaries as she rode him to completion.

More often than not, questions followed and drifted like blue butterflies through her mind's eyes as she flicked her fingers in slow, easy strokes. What would Cullen feel like within her? What would his bare skin taste like as she sucked on the spots where his veins ran hottest? Would he ask her to guide him, or would he be able to bring her to climax through sheer attentiveness and sweetness?

Every night, Elodie only lasted a moment under the duress of such thoughts. Almost ashamed of how quickly she could manipulate herself to orgasm with him in mind, she tried to slumber immediately after. She would fall asleep face down in the pillows, the curtains blocking out the majority of her bedroom save for one. The window she left open faced Cullen's office, and the graying of impending dawn through its panes always woke her immediately when the next day was upon them all.

It was a week's vacation from reality, in a way, if only for a few hours after the sun set.

However, as diverting as these nighttime getaways were, during the day Elodie had little to no time to herself. Meals she took with her companions, reveling in the moments of small relaxation they afforded everyone and listening to their plans for upcoming missives. Josephine would come by before the breakfast was over in order to remind her of which representatives, council members, and diplomats were visiting Skyhold that day and how long they would be staying. Between breakfast and lunch, there were construction efforts to oversee and sometimes prisoners to judge. The latter left her drained and empty most of the time, even though she tried to pass sentences with compassion. It was just something Elodie decided flat out that she was not suited for. Afternoon sparring practices were a regular thing with Cassandra and sometimes Krem, depending on how late Elodie made her way outside, and she would take out her anxieties over a ruling onto a practice dummy if she could.

Elodie had a feeling that this influx of work had come with having asked Scout Harding to map out the Dales more thoroughly. It was an area Elodie was avoiding, one she knew she’d have to journey to before long. The thought of that impending travel time kept her mind occupied if she was faced with any silent moments during the day. By the time she would go to Cullen after dinner, she was ready to collapse. He always seemed to feel the same way, at first. His eyes were rimmed with purple, as if he wasn't sleeping well, and he always had a softness to him that belied the way his brow furrowed in habitual tension.

She delighted in kissing his brow free of the line that formed when he was overthinking something. She marveled that he let her.

Despite this, or perhaps because of this, Elodie had to admit that it was a good thing to be so stressed. It made every stolen moment with Cullen sweeter, yet at the same time she did not feel she was shirking her duties in order to revel in his attentions. It was good, albeit exhausting, to spend the week in such a manner.

At least, that's what she told herself for the majority of it.

On the sixth day, the schedule began to wear on her. The familiar ache of wanting to be _anywhere else_ but in charge of hundreds of people settled into her bones. It was to be expected. It was one of the reasons why she had enjoyed leaving to go into the field, back when they were in Haven. Leaving made her decisions feel small again, instead of vast and far reaching. It made her feel like a person instead of a metaphor. Skyhold was established enough at this point that the thought of leaving no longer worried her. She needed to get out.

The weight of it all began to encumber her to the point that her quiet moments with Cullen could not even fully recharge her. She wished she could ask to spend the night with him for the entire night, or ask him to leave Skyhold with her for a brief moment. In her mind, they wouldn't even have to do anything physical. Merely laying beside a warm body that curved to fit around her own would be something of deep comfort. Elodie wanted it so badly that when Cullen left her on the sixth night, a smirk on his beautiful mouth, she could feel her arms twitch to reach out to him once more. It took all the energy she had to keep from grabbing at his armor and not letting him go.

But that reeked of desperation, she told herself. So Elodie kept her arms by her sides, and she kept her sentiments to herself. That night, she did not slip her hands beneath her smallclothes to hasten sleep. That night, she lay awake for a while considering what these feelings meant.

When the moon was high and most of her staff was on late shift, she made a decision. Stealing off through Skyhold's halls, Elodie took a little bedroll outside and spent the night in the garden. Both her work and her bed felt too restrictive, too narrow somehow, like a corridor growing smaller as she continued walking down it. A part of her wished she could tell Cullen how she was feeling, but she quashed that with a definitive mental push.

She could handle this on her own. She was Dalish, and sleeping outside had been a comfort for far longer to her than thoughts of Cullen had been. Better to just do what felt natural and tell him about her feelings once it blew over.

Underneath of the stars in the garden she'd built up, the torches around the gazebo long since extinguished, Elodie found a restless, dreamless sleep. The edges of her visions danced with periwinkle-tinted leaves, and welcome blackness took her in its arms where Cullen could not.

* * *

When she awoke before the dawn surrounded by royal elfroot and ferns she’d planted by the gazebo, she felt a bit of herself fall into place. Everyone was still asleep for the most part, the smell of breakfast smoke barely licking at the edge of her nostrils. Elodie had a jump start on productivity, waking up so early. But the thought of calling yet another war council made her feel queasy.

She felt like she’d been doing nothing but call war councils lately. Her advisors always dropped what they were doing to join her, for which she was incredibly grateful; both Cassandra and Solas also made appearances when they saw fit to lend their expertise or advice. And seeing Cullen at work, even if he was gritting his teeth against Josephine’s suggestions of noble house alliances, was always a dark thrill for her. He was rougher, when Elodie was putting him to work. More demanding, more confident. And before he was fully awake, his voice took on a darker tone, like it took him a minute to warm up his voicebox for the day.

But for some reason even the thought of Cullen's sleep-roughened, gravelly timbre wasn't enough to make Elodie want to call a meeting. She made up her mind to grab the completed reports from her room and go speak with Leliana alone, hopefully not distracting the Spymaster for too long from her own schedule. Elodie skipped breakfast, wanting to file the armful of papers away before the day broke golden and pink over Skyhold’s rooftops.

As Elodie approached the rotunda that led to Leliana's roost, she caught sight of Solas rearranging a pile of books on his desk. She went to nod hello, but he waved her over. Even though she’d missed Solas on the last trip, he seemed like he was preoccupied researching ancient artifacts and these weird metallic, skull-embossed shards that she seemed to find everywhere. She thought to ask about his discoveries, and assumed that was why he’d beckoned.

“Hey. Is that-”

“Shh,” Solas held his finger to his lips and pointed upwards.

Elodie glanced where he was gesturing, past the second floor where she could hear Dorian talking to Helisma, up where the ravens were flapping about. She knew Leliana had taken the roost up in the top of the tower, much like her beloved birds, but Elodie hadn’t realized how easy it was to hear that far when it was open air down the center for three floors.

She looked back to Solas, who raised his eyebrow as he tilted his head. The effect perked one of his ears, and Elodie’s eyes widened. Solas was _telling_ her to eavesdrop? She pulled back her curls and did the same, mirroring him automatically without question.

“... when did you get this?” Leliana asked, her voice fading into audible levels.

“Just now,” Cullen responded. He sounded upset, terse. Elodie tilted her head further just an inch. “The rubble, it’s…”

A dark, heavy sigh. Elodie frowned.

“I can have my agents go back immediately, look through the remains for anything of value, any survivors,” Leliana said.

“I don’t think the Inquisitor would want us to go poking around until we're certain it's safe.”

“Have you shown her this? Asked her what she wants done?”

“Not yet,” he muttered, his voice quieter still. It was even harder to hear, but Elodie thought she heard a second sigh. “Between us, Leliana, she doesn’t need to know yet.”

“You’re asking me to keep this from her?”

Elodie’s brow knit together hard, her face rigid with concentration. She could feel Solas looking her over, but pretended not to notice. She wouldn’t know what to say or do if she made eye contact with him now.

“Only for a moment. Only for today."

"Are you ordering me as a fellow advisor? Because that doesn't work at the war table, it won't work h-"

"No," he bit out, and Elodie could hear the cold offense in his tone. "I'm asking you, as a friend."

Leliana was silent, as if considering it.

“She has only just been given a chance to breathe the last few days," Cullen uttered carefully. "There have been no signs of the Wardens, no word from Empress Celene or from other Orlesian nobility, save the occasional letter regarding arranged marriages. Something is rising, tension in the West that we cannot predict. This is the eye of the storm. Or perhaps one of many."

Leliana did not reply, and Elodie wished she could see her Spymaster's face.

Cullen sighed.

"I refuse to take this calm from her.”

A pause, one where Elodie forced her brow to relax lest she give herself a headache.

“It is part of her job as Inquisitor, Commander,” Leliana replied, and her tone bordered on condescending. "Or are you forgetting what we are here to do?"

It was the way one might speak to a child who knows better. The way one might speak to someone whose frivolities one does not approve of.

Elodie blanched at the implication.

She didn't think that she and Cullen were being too obvious with their relationship. They never mentioned anything formally to anyone, never were around each other in public long enough to draw questioning eyes, and they both always completed their work separately. Granted, they were also not quite as subtle on the battlements as they could be, and she did tend to go to his office more often to chat than she had in previous weeks. When they walked together and had long chats into the evening, they linked arms. When conversation turned to the flirtatious, Cullen pressed her softly into the stone wall, but only in the shadows of the towers at night when there was nobody around. These were small things... but Elodie realized that Leliana would have known about them right away.

Was that a note of disapproval in her Spymaster’s voice? Was she angry?

Elodie heard footfalls, as if Cullen had stepped quickly to follow Leliana somewhere.

“It is also my job as Commander of the Inquisition forces to report to our leader as I see fit. Do what you will, but I'm telling you that I will not be the one to urge her grief to hasten itself,” Cullen bit out. "I do not relish any of the actions our hands have been forced to see to fruition, but I am the first one to volunteer to carry out a task, am I not?"

Leliana said nothing, not that Elodie could hear. Cullen gave a little grunt.

"Remember that the next time you accuse me of having lost direction."

The air between the two disagreeing parties, its silence pregnant with ire, hung low in the space of the rotunda.

Elodie glanced at Solas, making eye contact with him in confused inquiry, but he merely nodded at her as if he were giving her leave to go. She nodded back, promising herself she would come back to speak with him more about this later.

Solas turned back to his mural, his ears relaxed, and Elodie knew that he would give her conversation with her advisors more privacy now that Elodie was joining them. She took the steps two at a time and made it up to Leliana’s perch right as Cullen handed her Spymaster a little metal tube.

“I’m sorry,” Leliana whispered. But Elodie couldn't tell if the apology was for her comment about the Inquisitor, or about Haven itself.

“So am I,” Cullen answered brusquely, and he turned to leave with his head downcast. “Leliana?”

“Yes.”

“If she meets with you today, please leave me out of the discussion.”

“You’re asking me to lie to her twice now?”

“N-no! Don't misinterpret this. I’m merely asking that you omit my involvement should you decide to speak freely with her. Say you found out from one of your agents if you have to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to have to discuss this anymore than I already have,” he said frigidly, a phrase that made Elodie catch her feet and silence them before she reached the top of the landing.

Cullen and Leliana were still far away; it sounded like the two of them were standing by the altar Leliana had set up past the balcony door. They wouldn’t see Elodie if she stepped around into the shadows of the columns supporting the roof. Doing so, she watched the Commander show himself back out of the tower without so much as a glance her way. He was so distracted by whatever he and Leliana had been talking about that he did not even notice Elodie in the dark when she shifted her weight back and forth. His hand was at the bridge of his nose, pinching hard, as if he were trying to ward off a headache and doing a poor job of it.

When the clack of his boots on the stairs faded, and when she heard him greet Solas as he crossed the rotunda to get to his office, Elodie knew Cullen had retreated fully to his office. She relaxed, stepping out of the shadows and up to meet her Spymaster at the desk.

Leliana glanced up and Elodie recognized the merest flinch, the tiniest dilation of her pupils that showed she had been caught halfway unaware.

“Inquisitor,” Leliana said softly. “You snuck up awfully quiet. I had forgotten how easily a Dalish hunter could do such a thing.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Elodie replied as she set down her armful of paperwork. The edges of the reports were crinkled from the way she’d clutched at them, a nervous gesture she hadn’t even realized she’d done until after the reports were already set on the desk.

“That’s quite alright,” Leliana answered, her voice still hushed. “Maybe you should be in charge of teaching some of my agents a thing or two about lightness of foot.”

Elodie wondered if Leliana was keeping her voice low for Cullen’s sake, if Leliana was waiting until she thought him out of earshot before she spoke louder. She said nothing to reassure her, even though she knew he’d left. Elodie stepped closer, eyes pointedly on the tube in the redhead’s gloved hand. Leliana looked down at it as well.

“I take it you overheard the conversation I just finished having with the Commander.”

“I did, but only the last half.”

Leliana nodded, her face a mask of indifference that her eyes did not match.

“Will you tell Cullen you were here, and what you heard?”

“No,” Elodie said, unsure of why that instinctive answer cropped up immediately. Guilt suffused her immediately as she said it… but she really didn’t want to press the Commander when he obviously wanted to be left out of this. Instead, almost petulantly carrying with her the same secrecy she’d overheard Cullen using, Elodie nodded at the tube in Leliana’s fingers. “Not if you can be the one to tell me what has him so upset.”

“It’s…” Leliana’s brow twitched, and her mouth struggled past the words. “These are the names of all those we lost at Haven.”

Elodie let out a sharp breath, grief renewed in an instant, and Leliana seemed to feel the same. Her expression eroded just enough, her eyes losing focus as she sat down at her desk.

“You must blame me for this,” she said.

Elodie could tell that Leliana herself certainly did.

“We all saw who attacked us,” Elodie replied, hoping she’d struck the right balance of comforting and firm. “We know exactly who is to blame, and it is not you.”

Leliana refused to glance up at her, and just past her black hood Elodie could tell that her expression was sick and muddled. She shook her head and pushed off of the desk, turning away to face the window. Elodie wondered if Cullen was walking to his office, shoulders back, with a similar expression of guilt-ridden seriousness plastered on his face. Leliana sighed.

“I keep wondering if I could have done something different.” She half-turned back to Elodie, and her tone took on a sharper quality. “When my first lookouts went missing, I pulled the rest back, awaiting more information. If they’d stayed in the field, they could have bought us more time,” she finished, her words terse.

“Leliana-”

“I was afraid to lose my agents, and instead we lost Haven,” she snapped.

“You looked out for your people,” Elodie whispered, wishing she could convey the amount of respect she had for Leliana instead of watching her pace in her own grief. She didn’t feel like she and her Spymaster were all that close, even though she had spent many an hour outside of Haven speaking with Leliana about various details of her missions. Elodie frowned, determined to make her understand. “That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?” Leliana uttered, her words devoid of feeling. She inhaled, then burst forth, “My people know their duty. They know the risks. They understand that the Inquisition may call upon them to give their lives.”

It cut at Elodie, not because it wasn’t true, but because it made their sacrifice and willingness to take up arms feel so much more impersonal. They were people, with names, names still held clutched tightly in Leliana’s fist. Those people had known, true, that their lives could end at any given time. But that did not mean they weren’t worth protecting every bit as much. She knew her Spymaster was grieving, but Elodie couldn’t abide her tone.

“Our people aren’t tools to be used and discarded,” Elodie bit out. Leliana’s shoulders seemed to tense at that, and she quickly added, “Your instincts were right. Their lives matter.”

“Can we afford such sentimentality?” Leliana rebounded, her voice echoing down to the rotunda. “What if Corypheus-”

“We are better than Corypheus,” Elodie interrupted, certainty and pride lowering her tone even as her own words bounced gently through the quiet tower. Solas would not have been able to ignore that, even though Elodie suspected that his gentlemanly demeanor would keep him from mentioning it to her.

Leliana paused, and then sighed deeply. Her shoulders relaxed, and yet she stayed turned towards the window. Elodie waited a beat, then moved to Leliana’s desk. “I’ll leave these reports here for now,” she said, pulling out two folded pieces of paper she had in her belt from Crestwood still, along with the paperwork she'd been clutching to her chest. It held the marks of her fingers on the sides, the pages crinkled from her anxious grip, but neatness was never one of Elodie's strong suits anyway. She doubted that Leliana would care.

She went to leave, sensing that Leliana needed a minute, and tried to keep her footsteps soft as she padded down through the library. Had she not had her ear cocked at just the right angle, she never would’ve heard the soft, shuddering breath through the onslaught of flapping wings and crow caws.

* * *

 

Elodie kept to herself for the rest of the day. She thought about the list of names, the way her heart tugged at her chest. Cullen had asked that she not receive word of it, had justified it by saying he could not speak of it yet and said that Elodie didn't need to be burdened with it. This conflicting sentiment left Elodie wondering where she and Cullen stood as far as closeness.

Would he have shared his grief with her if he’d gotten the names when she was having breakfast in his office the other day? Was this a wake-up call, reminding him that his dalliance with the Inquisitor should be less of a precedent than the real work at hand? The thought worried at her the way a dog might worry a bone for its marrow, cracking and splintering her slowly over the course of the day.

She took walks to keep her mind off of it. Strolling the perimeter of the courtyard, she stopped and watched as Cole helped a healer forgive herself. It was a worthwhile distraction. She found herself asking him questions, speaking with him to know more about him. She wondered why she hadn’t until now. He didn’t need much talking, the half-spirit boy, so Elodie stuck by him for a while and wove clovers into a bracelet for him to wear.

Around noon, Cole found her a book to read and they sat by the fire in the tavern, listening to Krem and Bull regaling the usually stone-faced Cabot about a time they had fought their way out of a drunken varghest nest. Nobody knew how the varghests had gotten shitfaced, but it made for a great story. By the time her stomach growled for dinner, Elodie had almost forgotten the way Leliana had wistfully stared out the window at the ghosts of her decisions.

Almost.

Unable to keep her mind from torturing itself over Leliana's guilt and Cullen’s reaction, Elodie sent a runner with a message for her Commander. A quick note, simply stating, “I’d like to see you tonight,” with only her first initial as way of signature. They needed to have a talk. Whether it was about Haven or not, she needed to confront him about what she'd overheard and what he'd said in regards to her grief. On a whim, she drew a little patch of stars at the bottom of the parchment, hoping childishly that it would help him feel soothed. Once the scout left with the letter in hand, she made her way to the hall for some dinner alone.

“Inquisitor,” Varric called as soon Elodie entered the dining hall.

So much for a solitary supper.

Elodie glanced around appreciatively as she moved to sit by the dwarf. Josephine had installed some new tables today, and Varric had already claimed one by the fireplace for his writing. Elodie liked the glint of new wood, stained with glossy resin, and just wished the floors were cleaner to offset it. She’d have to go talk to Josephine about further repairs and congratulate her on the ones she’d orchestrated already.

“How’s it going?” she asked him as she sat down in the chair he pulled out for her. He passed her a plate of roasted goat over a bed of greens, smothered in some kind of cheese sauce it looked like.

“Been good, for the most part.”

He sounded a bit off, and Elodie turned from her dinner to narrow her eyes at him.

“Something troubling you?”

“Nah,” he waved away her concern, but then Elodie watched as Hawke came to join them. Varric’s eyes creased further, his jaw set firmer, and his shoulders rolled back. He was worried. He was worried about what they’d uncover in the Western Approach, and he wasn’t talking to Hawke about it. Elodie bit her lower lip, working it between her teeth as she considered what she could do to help.

“Hawke,” Elodie turned, addressing the mage before her. “How are you liking Skyhold?”

“It’s a dry roof over my head, which is nice,” he answered, taking an immediate bite of goat as he got comfortable on his chair. “And the food’s not bad.”

“We have a pretty good team of cooks,” Elodie agreed.

“How does it compare to your clan's cuisine?” Hawke asked. Elodie smiled to herself. He had been the only person to think Dalish eating had been any different from their fare here, or at least the only one who'd cared enough to ask.

“It’s a bit richer. Portion sizes are bigger, too. But I like it!” She took a small mouthful, chewed, then added, “My father was very comfortable with shems, so we had a variety of food to try after we came into contact with people who’d trade with us.”

“Most surprising shemlen food?” Hawke asked, grinning.

“Ugh… braised nug,” Varric offered. “How can humans eat that crap?”

“Nug was weird. Also,” Elodie swallowed, taking a tiny sip of mead to follow. “I really didn’t understand this custom one year, where Orlesians would eat these nests bird made from spit? They ate them in a kind of soup?”

Varric let out a grunt, and Hawke grimaced.

“Orlesians,” he said by way of dismissal.

“Did you actually try that, Inquisitor?” Varric asked.

“Oh yeah. Not bad, just confusing. My father found the weirdest things for us to sample when I was little.”

“How did he get a hold of it?” Varric asked.

“He was resourceful. Loved to try new things. Most people traded him junk or things they had on their person, but sometimes gave him gems, and he shared whatever he had with me.”

“How’d your Keeper feel about that?” Hawke asked, eyes alight as if he knew the answer. Elodie smirked, making a mental note to ask Hawke how he knew so much about Dalish culture.

“Father was banned from most storytelling fires because he kept contradicting our  _hahrens_. He could come around if he was quiet, but my father was stubborn and never quiet. Still, he was beloved, in a way.”

“Was?” Hawke asked.

“He… passed away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. It was a while ago, when I was about sixteen,” Elodie said, looking up and smiling to show she bore no more hurt feelings on the subject. Varric twisted his mouth to one side, looking as if he wanted to apologize as well. Hawke nodded.

“My mother died not long ago. I empathize.”

“I’m sorry for your loss as well.”

“Does it stop?” Hawke asked, his eyes steely. “I mean… the pain of missing them, of course. Does it ever really go away?”

“No,” Elodie replied quietly after a beat. The ache in her chest always existed, the urge to show her father her jewelry and trinkets never diminished no matter how long he’d been gone. Hawke didn’t look surprised, and Elodie continued. “It stays. But it gets easier to talk about, to think about, over time.”

“Good to know,” Hawke said, shoveling another forkful of goat into his mouth. “I keep thinking to myself that every time shit looks bleak, it could always get bleaker. Not much of an outlook, is it, Inquisitor?”

“If it keeps you alive, and keeps you fighting, it’s a fine outlook to have,” Elodie replied, pushing her greens around with her fork. “But you know, there is beauty to be found in small places, even when it seems bleak.”

Her companions swallowed hard, Hawke’s jaw working as if he disagreed.

“What’s beautiful about this?” Hawke asked. “About the fear? The discord?”

Elodie couldn’t answer. When she looked up, Hawke’s eyes were shielded with quiet intensity. Looking past it, the purple beneath his eyes and the slight hooded wariness in his pupils, Elodie was reminded of Cullen somehow. Empathy for this essential stranger welled up, and she wished she could know what to say to help him heal.

“The ability people have to survive and overcome it.”

Silence. It seemed to resonate with the dwarf and the human before her, and Elodie smirked.

“Plus, I never would’ve met Varric if the sky hadn't torn itself open,” Elodie said, smiling fondly at the two of them. It seemed to shock Hawke back into himself, forcing a laugh from the man.

“Strange. I guess I should be grateful too,” he teased, and the dwarf rolled his eyes.

“If you two are done trying to butter me up,” Varric sighed, obviously trying not to look pleased with himself, “I do have something serious I wanted to discuss.”

“We were being serious,” Hawke interjected, but Varric ignored him completely.

“It’s one of the reasons I grabbed you, Inquisitor. Hawke and I both wanted to talk to you about it.”

“I’m listening,” Elodie said.

“Hawke’s going to head out tonight under cover of darkness to the Approach.” Keeping his voice low, he glanced up at Elodie. “I’d like us to head out tomorrow, quietly, if you’re okay with me tagging along in your party?”

"Quietly?"

"I'd rather we not make a big deal out of it. No scouts, no fanfare if we can help it. Everyone's already in enough of a tizzy as it is."

“O-of course. I’ll tell Dorian and Bull,” Elodie agreed.

“Only if they’re coming with us,” Varric requested gently.

She paused, setting her fork down. The idea of leaving quietly, of not worrying anyone, was standing out stark in her mind. It was a thought she rarely entertained. Elodie liked having her team of advisors there to support or correct her when she made decisions like this. She was still so new, so inexperienced, that she was worried she’d make a misstep that cost them more lives like Haven had.

However, the earlier conversation she'd overheard that day was still resonating in her mind.

_I refuse to take this calm from her._

“I know you just got back last week, Inquisitor,” Varric whispered, as if he could sense what she was considering, “but everything will be easier if we go sooner rather than later. And even easier if we can go without scaring people. We could find nothing out there. Could just be moldy Warden training exercises for all we know."

"To be perfectly frank, I'd like to sneak away before I'm subjected to more glaring from Cassandra,” Hawke admitted with a helpless smile. Even in his sarcasm, he was too genuine. It was hard not to smile back.

Elodie considered it, then nodded, her heart pounding. She looked at both the men across from her with as calm an expression as she could muster.

“I’ll make this right,” she said, echoing the feelings she’d had in Crestwood. “As best I can, anyway.”

The other two her nodded solemnly, and she realized that they were all clinging to faintest bead of hope that she was telling the truth.

“Inquisitor,” a scout said from just behind her shoulder, and Elodie turned. “Message for you from the Commander.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Elodie nodded, taking the sealed envelope with unsteady fingers. Varric and Hawke looked at each other, eyebrows raised and lips pressed into thin little smiles, but Elodie ignored them. She popped the wax seal and slid out the letter as she tried to conceal her eagerness.

At first, Elodie felt like someone else other than Cullen had written her a message to inform her of his schedule. It was a very formal, trite letter, and it barely filled half a page. At the bottom, however, was his signature. Elodie reread it with a frown.

_Inquisitor-_

_While I appreciate your offer, I'm afraid that I am unable to meet you tonight. I have had to reschedule a meeting with two of my captains because of an issue with supply lines in Emprise du Lion, as well as suffer through an audience with an envoy from Empress Celene’s personal guard. It brings me no pleasure to have to refuse you. Perhaps we will have time later this week for breakfast, maybe tea, but I can make no promises at the moment._

_Please allow me some time alone. I apologize for the situation I’ve put you in._

_Cullen Rutherford, Commander of the Inquisiton Forces_

Her stomach dropped at the tone, and as she read on she had a hard time containing a sigh that welled up in her throat. The letter was even signed very formally, with no indication that Cullen and Elodie had been meeting regularly to take comfort in one another’s arms, no allusion to any intimacy between them. He used his last name and title, even. Elodie attempted to erase the displeasure from her face, then set the letter on the table.

“I’m going to assume that’s not love poetry,” Hawke said gently.

“Are you kidding?” Varric asked. “That’s the exact face I make when I read love poetry.”

“How can you say that when you write for a living,” Hawke bit out.

“Name one poem of mine.”

“The chapter lead-ins for that romance novel series of yours.”

“Low-blow, Hawke.”

“Boys,” Elodie picked her fork up again, endeavoring to look cheerful in the midst of her disappointment. “It’s fine. Just a reminder of something I forgot to fill out at the war table, nothing more.”

Both of them stared across at her as she ate, but knew better than to disagree.

“Now, we were on the subject of weirdest food we’d ever eaten?” Elodie reminded them. Varric obliged, launching into a recipe involving a lot of bark and some sort of fish. She tried to listen, but it was difficult. She kept telling herself she shouldn’t take it personally, but she couldn’t help but think that the guilt she’d seen distracting Cullen this morning had to be taking its toll.

At the bottom of the note, in most likely his own endeavor to be kind, was a little sentence that worried her.

_Please allow me some time alone. I apologize for the situation I’ve put you in._

It was vague, to say the least, and worrisome at best. But Elodie knew Cullen, and knew he would not ask this of her out of malice. And if it implied something more serious, he would have talked to her. After their starlit conversation about the Amulet of Stardust, Elodie was confident he wouldn't just choose to cut her out on a whim.

Mostly confident, anyway.

But still, pinching at the back of her skull was an errant thought, one that hurt to entertain. Maybe he did not need to be alone. Maybe he just needed to not be around _her_ specifically. Maybe he could find comfort in her touch, get hard at the merest kiss from her, and bury his lips in the contour of her neck... but could not use her company for deeper wounds.

Elodie swallowed down bile at the thought, and decided that she would call the war council but send a runner to tell Cullen that he didn’t have to attend. It would be a short meeting for the others’ sakes anyway, nothing to burden them any further. It would be best for everyone if she left as quietly as possible with minimal fussing… just like Varric said.

Her appetite completely gone, Elodie pushed around her goat and attempted to be sociable. From the kind, almost apologetic look that Hawke trained her with across the table, however, she knew she was doing a miserable job.

* * *

 

It was late by the time Elodie got around to sending for Leliana and Josephine. For all Varric's talk about leaving quietly, she still could not justify stealing away in the night. It would scare her advisors. At the risk of causing more confusion than less, Elodie had decided to call for her war council at the very last moment. She had even sent a runner with an envelope to Cullen’s door, but instructed them not to disturb him and to slip it under the doorjamb if necessary. The runner had looked confused, but compliant. Elodie had half expected the boy to argue, but he had not.

Elodie had signed her name just as formally on the note to the Commander, had mirrored Cullen’s tone of businesslike rigidity. She hoped it was what he needed from her, because she honestly wasn’t sure how to proceed. All desire to tease him had fled, replaced with a sense of foreboding. It was difficult to process their breathless confessions and passionate embraces with the heavy fog of weariness that now seemed to loom over their relationship.

It was easy to forget, for a moment, that they had barely escaped death. And that death would come again unless Elodie continued to move. So here she was, reminding herself of her duties, in the war room by herself before her advisors arrived.

Before lighting the candles to illuminate the map on the large petrified tree of a table, Elodie paused. She could see the stars outside of Skyhold from here, could look out the window and see cold glittering speckles in the night sky. It was beautiful, somehow painful. She stared up at the night sky, wondering if she would sleep tonight. If any of them would.

“Inquisitor,” Leliana said, bowing her head as she entered. “What are you doing in the dark?”

“Just thinking,” Elodie said, and she moved over to begin lighting candles at Leliana’s side.

“I never took you for one with a flair for the dramatic,” she kidded.

“Been hanging around Dorian a bit too much, I guess,” Elodie grinned, scratching a match into brightness. By the time they’d lit half the candles, Josephine entered the room.

“Good evening, Inquisitor. Leliana.”

“Hello Josie,” their Spymaster said quietly. Elodie wondered if Leliana had told her about the note. She couldn't tell if Josephine was tired, or sad.

“Right, shall we begin?” Elodie said, allowing her diplomat to take her place on the other side of the table.

“But…” Leliana frowned. “The Commander isn’t here.”

“He is preoccupied,” Elodie replied. “I sent word for him but ordered that he not be disturbed under any circumstance. If he comes, he comes, but we should not expect him.”

Leliana and Josephine's wide-eyed look conveyed a shock Elodie hadn't expected. The Spymaster looked almost like she did not approve, but she and Elodie weren't close enough for Leliana to speak freely. Not in front of a third party member. Refusing to second-guess her decision, Elodie reminded herself that it was for the best. It was not motivated by petty reasons, either, no matter what it looked like to Leliana.

In truth, Elodie couldn’t bear the thought of Cullen being bothered by her presence yet again.

She called upon him at all hours, gave him task after task, so of course he needed a break from her. A thought had occurred since dinner. Elodie must be overloading him. She was present in every report, almost everything he had to finish during the day, and then she demanded his attention at night as well. It had to be too much. He had to have time to get everything done, and she needed to afford that to him.

Even more so, if his excuse of being too work-ridden to see her had been a lie and was, instead, an excuse for him to get some peace and quiet... she likewise didn’t want to disrupt that either.

Guilt for being upset at their foregone walk weighed her down, forcing her to lean on the table with both hands. And still, even though she knew that it was selfish, Elodie felt anxiety thrash deep in her heart. It whispered that she wasn’t able to help him, and that he had deliberately shut her out in order to help himself. It reminded her that she'd done something similar, sleeping outside instead of begging him to spend the night with her like she wanted. It whispered that they weren’t as close as she’d thought them to be, that Cullen was keeping her at arm’s length, and how was she any better.

It said that she’d made a mistake by rushing into the kisses, the confessions, and the jump she’d taken into Cullen’s arms.

Gritting her teeth, Elodie repositioned a tiny paperweight on a stack of files, just to have something to do with her hands.

“I know that Cullen took Haven rather hard,” Josephine murmured. “And then this morning there was news… I’m sure it was difficult for him to bear.”

Looking up at her other two advisors, Elodie took in a long breath.

“I know you all are still grieving,” she amended for the diplomat. “It was not easy to live through.”

“It was… horrifying,” Josephine conceded. After a brief pause, she looked up from her parchment. “Do you know who took up arms first? Our workers. As soon as they heard the call. They were so proud to serve.” She looked back down to the papers in her arms. “I can still hear the screams.”

Leliana reached out and touched a palm to her friend’s shoulder, patting the fluffy golden sleeve gently. Josephine glanced up with a tiny, grateful smile.

“How are you holding up, Inquisitor?” Leliana asked.

“Don’t wo-”

“Forgive me,” Cullen said, bursting in through the doors and startling all but Leliana into flinching. “I only just received word there was a meeting, or I would have been here earlier.”

“Cullen.”

“Inquisitor,” he inclined his head towards Elodie as he took his place between the two women on the other side of the table, but he did not make eye contact. "What's the situation?"

Elodie felt as if a great bear were seated on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She forced herself to draw in a long, slow breath and let it out just as carefully.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” she said quietly, and everyone, including Cullen, looked to her in silent surprise. “I’ll be heading to the Western Approach with Varric, Dorian, and The Iron Bull a few hours before dawn. We’ll move quicker in a small team. No scouts. Nothing we can’t carry ourselves. No word sent to anyone. I do not want an announcement made, and I do not want our forces skirmished. We're just going to leave.”

“When did you decide this?” Cullen asked, and there was more than a hint of irritability in his voice.

“At dinner,” Elodie said, her tone icy. He shut his jaw with a tiny, audible clack then fell silent. With difficulty, Elodie continued, “I do not want the recruits on alert, I do not want our people to feel as if they have to-”

“Nonsense, Inquisitor,” Leliana chimed in. “My agents are quick and stealthy. Having them accompany you will ease your movements, if anything.”

“No, Leliana-”

“I agree,” Cullen interrupted firmly. “I can have Scout Harding meet you in the Approach with a camp of soldiers at the ready. She’s already out past Emprise du Lion working on mapping out the Dales. It won’t take long for word to reach her and for her to move with our fastest footsoldiers to make base camp ready for your arrival.”

“But-”

“I’ll alert the families of the areas you’ll be traveling through,” Josephine piped up, making a note on her parchment with a few dull scratches. “We should be able to secure some side routes used mainly for off-season trading to enable you to pass more safely and even more quickly through the Dales on your way West.”

“I don’t want to go through the trouble,” Elodie tried to protest, but her advisors had turned to one another, bonded in their rebuttle of her idea. She watched, dumbfounded, as Cullen drew out two maps over the table and pointed to a renovated supply line just south of the Dales.

“Here, Leliana, you said your agents were using this for reconnaissance, right?” Cullen asked. “What if the Inquisitor started through here up until this valley? Could they meet her there?”

“They could, easily. We might be able to cut down her travel times by a full week, if we can plan this right,” Leliana agreed.

“True. It’s usually about forty days by horse at a leisurely pace to get past the Dales, but I think we can do better,” Josephine said, smiling at her dark-hooded counterpart. She turned back to Elodie with a softer expression. “You need not go it alone, roughing it and camping out, when friends are around to offer you accomodations.”

Elodie paused, frozen, watching the three advisors begin to speak to one another and see how best they could overlap their efforts to grant her safe passage. To think she had been trying to sneak away, to save them from more burdens, and here they were finding peace in the ability to unburden _her_. Cullen said something about seige equipment, and Elodie couldn’t help it. She gave a soft, helpless chuckle that sounded dangerously close to a sob.

All three of them turned to stare at her, and Elodie struggled to keep from smiling. Instead, she gave another nervous bark of laughter and had to swipe quickly underneath of one eye with the back of her hand.

“Inquisitor?” Josephine called, setting her pen and parchment down.

“Elodie,” Cullen said, his concern overlapping Josephine's.

She looked up at all three of them in immense gratitude.

“I’m sorry. I know it's rude of me to laugh. I just…” Elodie wiped at her eyes, marveling at the little tears that had still managed to escape past her lashes. She hoped they couldn't see in the dim candlelight. Clearing her throat, Elodie straightened herself. “I was just thinking to myself that sneaking away was doing you all a favor. Was doing Skyhold and its people a favor. And here you are bending over backwards for me, despite my damnedest to not be any trouble.”

“Glad to see our efforts are appreciated,” Leliana said dryly.

“I do. I appreciate them so much,” Elodie nodded, even though she felt like her Spymaster was being facetious. “In fact, it’s,” she paused, taking a deep breath to regain some composure.  She still felt close to tears, a dangerous ledge to live on when one was trying to be taken seriously. She tried again, in a lower tone. “It’s why I wanted to tell you I was leaving in the first place, because I appreciate it more than words can say. After everything you’ve done, and everything you do, I didn’t want you to think I'd abandoned you.”

All three of them paused, seemingly unsure of how to respond.

“I’m sorry to have cut you out,” Elodie whispered, realizing belatedly that she was speaking to Cullen personally, as well as to the others professionally. She hoped it wasn't too obvious. They all three made to wave off her apology but she held her hand up. “It won’t happen again,” she promised.

“Inquisitor,” Leliana said by way of thanks, inclining her head just slightly in a bow that Elodie returned.

“While we’re all here, and while we’re on the difficult subjects… I want to know what I can do for you where Haven is concerned,” Elodie added.

Leliana moved carefully so that her face was no longer lit by candles, shifting her weight as she stood at Cullen’s side, her hood guarding her expression. Cullen looked mournfully down at the map before him, and Josephine swallowed hard at the mention.

"It has been brought to my attention that a list of those we have lost is available."

Josephine's lips parted as if she were about to protest, but when the diplomat looked to the cloaked redhead across from her, Leliana merely nodded. Nobody spoke. Cullen's shoulders were squared, his expression dark and foreboding. Elodie turned from them, looking down at the map of Thedas stretched out and tacked to the wood before them.

“I was thinking of building a memorial,” Elodie said, her voice smaller now, calmer now. “I also wanted to send the Chargers out to try to get what they could from Haven’s rubble. Cullen, could you provide some troops for them as reinforcements? Just in case something less than savory lingers there?”

“Of course,” Cullen took the paper from Elodie, the one that she had set aside when Krem had spoken to her earlier. It listed a plan of attack, and supplies the Chargers would need to get back to Haven in the first place.

“I know, Josephine, you have a mass of letters from Orlesian nobility that you’ve been deferring to Cullen lately, and most of them are in regards to what happened at Haven.” Elodie looked up, and Josephine confirmed with a nod. “From now on, please send them directly to me. I’ll answer them to the best of my abilities and send them back to you for confirmation or corrections.”

“Inquisitor, I’m perfectly able to-”

“Leliana,” Elodie interrupted Cullen, turning to the former bard. “I want you to try to get some information on my clan, if you could? I need to know that they’re okay.”

The conversation with her Spymaster this morning had reminded her too painfully of what could occur when she was away for too long. Hopefully Deshanna was alright. Hopefully they all were. She’d be lying if she said her conversation with Hawke hadn’t egged her on to thinking of family as well.

“At once,” Leliana confirmed.

“Commander Cullen,” Elodie turned to the man she had just been kissing just last night, a night that felt like years ago. She straightened her shoulders, assuming a tone of kind impartiality. “I’d appreciate it if you could help me figure out some sort of promotion opportunity for Ser Delrin Barris. He’s been an exemplary addition to Skyhold, to the Inquisition, and he is a model example of how honorable Templars have the potential to be.”

“I…” Cullen paused, his chest falling, and he gave her a weak nod of approval. “Inquisitor.”

Elodie smiled back at him, even though it hurt that he did not reciprocate. If he needed to hole up and work to get through his grief, she could provide him with that. She could leave him alone, could adopt formality, and he could come back to her whenever he needed. If he ever came back to her, that is. She looked back to her other advisors, the thought stinging briefly in her sternum.

“I’ll start packing for the Approach and get our mounts ready. Is there anything else you would have me do before I leave?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Everyone turned to Cullen expectantly, and even though he blushed a beautiful shade of pink in the low candlelight, he pressed on.

“Inquisitor, if you have a moment, I would like to speak with you privately once our meeting here concludes. That is… if your schedule allows,” Cullen said quietly. Elodie struggled not to let her eagerness show, and merely gave him a nod. She ignored the way Leliana and Josephine pointedly glanced at each other behind Cullen’s back.

“When we finish here, stay behind, Commander. We can talk then.”

“Alright,” he acknowledged, taking a report from Josephine and reading over it as the other two advisors began to discuss which route was safest for Elodie to take in the morning.

As they spoke, Elodie tried to gather what info she’d been given and sort it mentally. What could the desert be holding, besides scorched sun and a threat of Venatori? Warden Stroud and Hawke had both seemed uneasy, whereas she viewed this merely as another step to be conquered. It made Elodie feel as though she hadn’t read nearly enough on what Wardens actually were; maybe if she had, she would feel more frightened. Besides the ones they encountered briefly on the Storm Coast, she had also never seen Darkspawn.

She’d lived through the Blight of course, but never witnessed it. Sequestered away in her aravels, she had once thought herself more exposed to the world of humans than most of her clan… and yet here she was, asking questions whose answers seemed like they should be obvious. At least nobody made her feel ridiculous for the asking.

In fact, her asking questions about the Wardens seemed to conjure up more creative outlets for ideas. They weren’t sure what they would find out in the Approach, but the four of them came up with a main set of ideas. Had Varric been around, bets would have been made, Elodie was certain of it, and she would’ve put her money on all of them at once. Cullen was worried it was blood magic, and he made a very logical case as to why.

“It all comes down to blood,” he said bitterly.

“Not always. I fear more for lures and traps,” Leliana countered. “It seems frightfully convenient that Hawke returns now, even more convenient that the Wardens are having trouble at the same time. Inquisitor, you cannot turn your back on anyone. Remember that.”

“You had us look into the Warden treaties in the first place,” Elodie said gently. “Do you really have a reason to be suspicious of them?”

“I’m suspicious of everyone,” the Nightingale answered.

While Leliana was more concerned about mercenary assassins and the like, Josephine seemed to be hung up on the possibility of dragons.

“You cannot predict them, we have barely any information on them as far as breeding grounds, hunting patterns, anything!” she fussed. “What if one sneaks up on you out there?”

“I’ve heard of a few dragons in various places I’ve visited,” Elodie tried to reassure her, “but I have managed to avoid them. I’m sure I’ll be fine in the Approach, too.”

“If only we had more information,” Josephine sighed. “I would feel safer about you traveling into such… primal areas.”

Leliana tittered at the remark behind her hand.

“Oh hush,” Josephine answered, but she smirked too. Elodie could tell the women were tired. Cullen was making notes on a map of the Dales, muttering something about the Arbor Wilds. It was late, and Elodie felt they had spoken of it for long enough. There was only the exploration itself left to get through, no matter what it held in store for her.

“I won’t see you all before I head out,” Elodie interrupted, “and I’ll be gone for at least a couple of months. So I want to say thank you ahead of time.”

“Such a kind leader,” Leliana quipped. “We’ll write often.”

Elodie narrowed her eyes, suspicious. She seemed… better than she had been a few hours ago. As if a weight had been lifted from the Spymaster’s chest, if only for a bit.

“Get some sleep, if you can,” Josephine said, practically pushing Leliana out the door.

“Inquisitor,” both women chorused, one right after the other, as they tried to hide their knowing grins. Josephine left, telling Leliana that a trip to the baths might do them some good, her friend heartily agreeing. They closed the door behind them, leaving Cullen and Elodie in quiet, candlelit silence.

Elodie knew that the longer she waited to speak, the more awkward this conversation would be. Without waiting for Cullen to start, she swallowed and spoke up first.

"I overheard your conversation with Leliana this morning," she said. Cullen stiffened, she could tell. It was almost like the fur lining of his coat bristled. "Not all of it, but enough to know that you did not want me to suffer. I appreciate that. It was a misguided action, one I don't necessarily agree with, but still... the sentiment of it is appreciated."

There was a long pause, one where Elodie was unsure if Cullen was even going to respond. Finally, he shifted his weight from hip to hip and cleared his throat gently.

"Did you speak with Leliana afterwards?"

"Yes. She was more open with me than I think she feels she can be with you at the moment. I want you both to go easy on each other in my absence."

He said nothing to this. Elodie wasn't sure what she expected him to be able to respond with, a statement like that left very little to go off of.

“How are you feeling, though, Cullen?” Elodie asked, her voice small.

Cullen was standing by the window, looking out at the stars, but the lights were ruining his view. He would only be able to see his own reflection in the pane of glass with the room lit as it was. He didn’t answer her, made no move as if he hadn’t heard her, and Elodie strode to the other side of the table. In a few short puffs, she extinguished the candles and plunged them into darkness. As if he had been under a spell until that instant, Cullen exhaled an unsteady breath.

“I’m better now than I was,” Cullen said softly, “but I… have not been myself since this morning.”

“Can you tell me about it, now that you've had a minute to process?” Elodie asked.  _Instead of sending me a note telling me to stay away from you?_

“It... I didn't think it was beyond the scope of things I normally have to handle. The day got more difficult than I anticipated. There were too many people in my office, too many papers being passed, and I couldn't seem to shake this ache in my head. When I received the scroll of names it..." he paused, took a deep breath, then continued, "it emptied me of all I had left. I didn’t want you to come by and feel ignored. Or worse.”

“You could have just said that.”

“I did. I wrote you a note,” he said, sounding perplexed.

“I read that. It felt…” Elodie swallowed. “Impersonal,” she finished, using the phrase Cullen had used almost a week ago when she’d handed him her listed confession.

He said nothing, just continued to stare out the window. Elodie fancied that she saw him shrug, his armored shoulders moving up and down in a soft gesture of uncertainty. It only furthered her doubts, and she had to resist running through their last interaction. Had she made any missteps? Had any of her comments helped to build this wall between them? Had she been too brazen, too eager, put her hands where they didn’t belong and made him retreat?

“Had I known you were leaving again so soon, I would have made our meeting more of a priority, despite my mood. Or… I like to think I would have tried to, at least.” Cullen hung his head slightly.

“Don’t think of it,” Elodie muttered, sounding not very genuine even to her own ears.

Cullen let out a mirthless laugh.

“I can’t help but think of it. Let's be honest, I should have thought of it more carefully before now, too. When I saw your face when I came in the room tonight…” he paused. “It looked like you didn’t want to see me.”

“I never _don’t_ want to see you, Cullen.”

“It felt like I put distance back between us,” he insisted. "And not for the first time, either."

“Maybe so. But I can feel it closing, now that we’re talking,” Elodie evaded, not entirely sure of what she was saying. "I... I really don't like that you didn't want to talk to me earlier. But I can understand now why you needed a moment to yourself."

She was overcome with an intense need to comfort him, but it was rivaled by an intense need to ask if she had caused this. And somewhere within that, there was a frustration with him.

If she and Cullen could speak easily about how much they were attracted to one another, they should be able to speak about other emotions, like grief and anger and uselessness and sadness.

Even so, she wished he would hold her. Or touch her. Something. A dark instinct within her could sense that moving towards him physically would just crowd him further, however. It was almost the same feeling she got when she was downwind from prey as a hunter. One wrong move, and the tension will break, and the effort will be for naught. The thought left her feeling winded. Maybe that was the reason Cullen was looking out the window: because it allowed him to breathe with thoughts like this crowding his mind.

She turned to the war table, away from him, and picked up a little metal puzzle box. It usually sat on the stacks of requisition orders Cullen brought in from new locations, kept them from blowing away in the breeze back at Haven. And now it was here, a familiar relic from another time that felt further away than it was. Elodie turned it in her hand, her lungs seemingly too small to get her enough air.

And Cullen still stayed by the window, shifting in his leathers, one hand behind his head as he struggled to conjure up something to say in response. Elodie could feel her heartbeat in her throat, her fingers shaky. She felt too vulnerable, too much like she had felt initially after Haven when Cullen had lost his smile at the sight of her. Anger threatened to well up, but she knew that was a mask for fatigue and concern. She sighed deeply.

“If you still need time, Cullen, I can give you that. We’ve only just started this, after all,” Elodie whispered, moving so that she could look at him once more. He half-turned, the fur at his collar hiding his expression from her. “If you need space, I can oblige,” Elodie continued, words flowing easily now in a hushed, frantic rush. “I leave often, you know, so it’s no trouble at all for me to pull back. We don't have to meet every night, or every day, or anything beyond the war council if you don't want. If you need to focus solely on work, I get that, and we can pretend that we never-”

“Please,” Cullen turned, his expression in the dark barely visible. His tone was rough, too low, a hiss that made Elodie flinch. He took a breath, then amended, “Please don’t finish that thought. I don’t want any of that.”

“Then what do you want?” Elodie asked, moving back to steady herself on the war table.

“I don’t really know.” Cullen turned back to the stars. “I've never- I'm not sure how to navigate this conversation, Elodie."

"I need you to try for me," Elodie murmured, and it seemed to have hit her Commander harder than she'd intended. His shoulders flinched momentarily, as if he'd exhaled sharply.

"I don’t want to cause you any undue stress, but in trying not to do that I caused you stress anyway," Cullen said in a rush, turning to her over his shoulder. "I don't want to keep things from you, but I don't like the idea of unloading my problems onto others. It's not how I operate, and it's not what I need when I'm upset. I don't want you to view me as a burden, but I don't want you to feel like you're disposable either, so I'm... I would say I don't know what I want.”

“If I can address one thing you said, let me reassure you that you are _not_ a cause of stress to me, Cullen,” Elodie whispered. "If anything, you're a relief from it."

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, but he sounded as if he were unconvinced.

“Look... it's okay that you're unsure, but... do you still want me?” she pressed, fear streaking through as an undercurrent to her tone. It sounded like he was rethinking his confession of days prior, and possibly everything that had come after. But she was tired, Elodie justified. Tired and lonely. So maybe these assumptions were all in her head.

She tried to amend her statement to clarify to him, but could only make a small sound in the back of her throat. Elodie swallowed hard, biting back the noise.

In the dark, Cullen turned fully to her. A thrill of unknown excitement coursed through her at the sight. He was not prey, not any longer. She wondered when the shift had happened, but here he stood, animalistic, a predator in the dark. She couldn’t read his expression, but his frame was so large and backlit by the moon that Elodie was reminded of being stalked by gigantic wolves outside of Markham when she was younger. Her heart beat faster, but instead of running, she stared him down, beckoning him.

She would prefer to be bitten than to be alone in that moment. At least being bitten would mean he was as hungry for her as she was for him. At least it would confirm that what she felt, and what they’d done, was as real to him as it was to her.

He strode over, his boots echoing on the floor in quick tempo, and Elodie closed her eyes before the onslaught. She wanted his leatherclad hands at her waist, lifting her up onto the table, pushing away papers and knocking quills and paperweights to the floor in a clatter as he bore down into her space. She wanted him to push her roughly to the table, to tear at her scarf, to pull out the fear she had at leaving and change it into something else. She wanted something physical to hold onto, instead of the vague nebulous feelings she could sense between them.

But Cullen did none of those things. He took Elodie’s head in his hands, brushing back her curls as his fingertips traced the length of her pointed ears, and when her forehead was free of her bangs he pressed a kiss to the top of her scar. Shaken, Elodie reached up and grabbed at his wrists. He wasn't wearing his gauntlets today, merely leather gloves pulled up about the fabric on his forearm. Wriggling a finger underneath of the seam of his glove, seeking out his flesh, Elodie could feel his pulse leap at her touch. It fluttered there, barely beneath his skin, nervous.

Cullen was scared.

The mood shifted, tamed, and once again Elodie could not discern whether she wanted to comfort or be comforted. But it didn't matter, because thank the Maker Cullen was finally holding her. Elodie leaned into his touch, and he continued to plant kisses against her cheeks, her closed eyes, her vallaslin, and her scar. She smiled when his lips found hers, felt him smile faintly against her mouth as well. He pulled back and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, drawing her against him in a warm embrace. She inhaled, enjoying the feeling of his other hand tangling softly in the curls past her ear, and she wrapped her arms as tightly as she could about his waist. Spices. Crushed flowers. Earthy leather. Comforting and familiar and so very him.

“Yes, I still want you, of course I still want you,” he whispered. “How could I not, Elodie?”

“I could find a reason or two that you wouldn’t,” she replied.

“You should never have any doubts as to how I feel about you,” Cullen answered, clutching her almost imperceptibly tighter to his chest. “I’ll endeavor to banish those much more thoroughly in the future.”

Elodie made another tiny noise, her torso feeling like sparks were alight just beneath her ribs, and she pressed herself harder against him. She tried to hug him as ardently as she could, to show him he was just as wanted, but it felt almost like hugging stone.

“This is difficult with your armor on, Commander.”

He huffed a tiny laugh against her forehead, then kissed the part in her hair.

“I appreciate your determination all the same, Inquisitor.”

“Mmph,” she snuggled deeper into his furlined cloak, then turned her face so that she could breathe a bit easier. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

Elodie hoped he knew what she meant. She wanted to help ease his mind, no matter what she found on this next leg of the journey. She wanted to help them stay close, to help keep them both from dancing away from each other at the first sign of a difficult emotion.

It took him a second, but Cullen caught on to her intention before he answered.

“You… can write me letters,” he whispered. “Show me the tone you prefer to be addressed in, and I’ll try to match it in my replies.”

“Are you not used to writing informal letters?”

“No.”

“Not even to your sister?”

“I…” Cullen exhaled. “I should write my sister to begin with, I suppose.”

“That could be a good thing,” Elodie suggested. She moved against him and he resituated himself so that he wasn't crushing her so tightly to his breastplate. “You could try writing me with random thoughts you have throughout your day?”

“I can try. Within reason,” he promised. “I’m fairly certain that Leliana will read our correspondence. Others might as well, should it be intercepted.”

“Ah. I’ll keep my letters brief then. Maybe change my tone a little, too.”

“Don’t,” Cullen replied, sounding as if he had blurted it before catching himself. He cleared his throat, then added, “I, um, I like your lists as they are.”

“You just like reading about your stung arse,” Elodie joked weakly.

He tried to laugh, but it felt like a difficult sound. Elodie wanted nothing more than to kiss it away from his lips, replace it with true contentment. Instead, she nuzzled into the crook of his neck.

"You can write me as ridiculous a poem as you like," he muttered, "and I'll treasure it until your return."

"Only until my return? You'd throw it out after I was safely home?"

"Oh most definitely," he teased. "Upon your return, I anticipate that we'll write other poems and lists together. Ones we won't have to worry about anyone reading over." He trailed his lips over her brow, kissing her thoughtfully as he murmured against her skin, "Perhaps ones that contain another type of confession altogether, detailing all of the ways I definitively and still desperately want you."

It took Elodie a moment for the implication to dawn on her, but when it did she felt her limbs grow weak. Was he implying that he'd be ready to do more, physically, when she returned? If they kept up correspondence, if they worked on how they spoke to one another? It was too much to assume. She had to change the subject, lest she overheat at the thought of possibly getting to undress Cullen piece by piece the next time she returned through Skyhold's gates. Or press him further to do something with her now, since she was here, and he was here, and this would be the last time they could embrace for Maker knew how long-

“When you kissed me a few days ago on the battlements,” she whispered, “how long had you wanted to do that?”

Not a great subject change, to be sure, but a better one than blurting out  _take me now_ nonetheless.

Cullen chuckled, the rumble of his laugh a vibration she could feel through his armor. His hand moved to cover the nape of her neck in a protective, comforting gesture, and he tucked her head beneath his chin.

“We’re talking about the first true kiss, right? Not the almost-kiss in the courtyard?”

“Yes,” Elodie answered, breathless.

“Longer than I should admit,” he said silkily.

It was reassuring, a small sign that he craved her the same way she did him. She didn’t know what kind of walls he had built up around himself over the years, but the idea that he had thought of her romantically, had thought of _kissing_ her, a long time ago was comforting.

“Back when we were friends? You thought about it?”

“I feel a bit of guilt in admitting it. But yes, I imagined kissing you when we were friends. Looking out at the stars was a beautiful distraction from eyeing how full your lips are.”

“How about before?” Elodie pried. “Did you want to kiss me even before we looked at the stars together? Back when my title and your work kept us from even becoming friends?”

“Y-yes,” he muttered, his voice gruff. Elodie wondered if he was blushing.

She gave a giddy little laugh, and her breath must have tickled his neck. Cullen flinched, his hand tightening in her curls for a moment, and she felt the anxiety from before slowly melting away. He had let her in a little bit. He could let her in again, even if it took a while.

“Speaking of which. I know your work’s important, probably even more so now than it ever was. But please don’t forget to take breaks while I’m gone,” Elodie murmured, turning her lips to his neck. She could feel him clench his jaw beneath her kiss, and she resisted the urge to move against him with her entire body.

Slow. Cullen would need her to go slow. She could not tell who was predator or prey, and perhaps she never would; maybe they were both of them at once, chasing one another as well as their new, unsteady feelings.

“I can’t promise anything," he whispered, "but I’ll try.”

Elodie said nothing, merely reconciled herself to this. No promises, not yet, but trying would be enough.

“Me too,” she echoed, hoping he knew how happy the thought made her.

“Keep me updated on everything when you can,” Cullen suggested, sounding slightly tense at the thought of her finding time to write him. “A couple of months is a long time to be away. I’ll want to know how you’re doing.”

“I was planning on it,” Elodie chuckled into the fabric on his breastplate. He’d hear the bad parts in her reports to Leliana, she was sure, so she was going to endeavor to make him lists of the good parts to her day. It would help her find positivity once she got past the Dales, too. “Will you be here for me when I get back?”

“Of course.” Cullen’s arms tightened around her. “This feeling isn’t going to go away just because you’re not physically in front of me, Elodie.”

“Mmm,” she hummed. She wanted to ask what feeling he meant exactly, but didn’t for fear of backing him into a corner. Still, the question lay dormant on the tip of her tongue.

“Be patient with me,” Cullen murmured. “I’m not used to this.”

“And what exactly is this?” Elodie asked, succumbing to curiosity. After the anxiety from earlier, she wanted something in no uncertain terms. "This thing, between you and I?"

Cullen sighed happily.

“This is something incredibly special. Something I want to continue, if you do.”

His voice was quiet, the same tone he’d used when he’d said Elodie’s first name out in the snow at Haven for the first time. It was as if he had surprised himself, but did not regret it having been uttered. Elodie brought her hands up to his shoulders, then placed them on his breastplate open-palmed. She pushed him away just enough to be able to look him in the eye.

“I'm not letting go anytime soon,” Elodie answered, unsteady in the small vulnerability. "Even when I leave Skyhold, I think you'll find I'm a very patient woman."

“Good,” he answered, his breath escaping in a relieved rush. “I mean, thank you. I…” he swallowed hard, then continued. “You must know, there is a very large part of me that does not want you to leave again so soon. I don’t feel very steady in my own thoughts right now. One second I want to discuss your traveling strategy, the next I want to beg you not to go anywhere.”

Cullen did seem to be confused, his words tense, but he was at least still holding onto her. His hand was gentle at her ear, even through the leather of his gloves, and she tried not to shudder with pleasure as he curved his fingers around the soft skin at the nape of her neck. She reached for the gold at his chest and dipped her fingers beyond his gorget, seeking the leather strap that held their shared glass star around his neck. She found it, tugging gently, reminding them both that it was there.

“It will go by quickly,” she lied, and he pushed her back to give her a flinted look that made her burst into a smile. “I’m going to try to make it go by quickly, anyway,” Elodie amended, and she slid her hand from his throat to the back of his neck. He shuddered at her touch, a tremor that Elodie accepted with pride.

“Come back to me as soon as you're able to,” he ordered softly, and before she could answer his lips were at her temple. Elodie tilted her chin up, seeking his jaw in the darkness now with both of her hands. When she found it, she traced his scar with her thumb and pulled him close.

“It will not be soon enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the gap in posting! I'm getting back into regular writing lately as work levels itself out, so let's see where Elodie and Cullen are headed in the meantime ^^
> 
> Notes about my headcanon for my m!Hawke, since I've yet to complete DA2 haha. I love love love the idea of a diplomatic Hawke romancing Merrill and listening to her talk about her interests for hours on end. Good boy listener Garrett, sweetheart honeypie Merrill, both with extra name-consonants for daaaayyys. I feel like Hawke would like Elodie for how much he sees her listening to others too.
> 
> I also fully realize that Elodie and Cullen haven't had the "lyrium talk" in their courtship yet. Had you noticed? It's a bit wonky, the confession between them in relation to in-game conversation timeline and how I wrote them together, but I have defffs not forgotten. Don't you worry. You can see a bit of it affecting their relationship even now if you look closely.
> 
> Spoiler, no spoiling ;)


	18. To The West

“Boss?”

Elodie didn’t respond. She was lost in thought, remembering how difficult it had been to stop her wandering hands as she kissed Cullen goodbye last. They had been at his office door, close to his quarters, close to privacy. He had dragged his hand down her back, brushing over the top of her breeches with hesitant, fluttery fingertips. He'd tasted of sadness, of the goodbye tears she had kept from falling.

She left all the time; out of the countless ventures she'd ridden off to complete, why should this mission be any different?

But it was. They had both felt it, both held each other close until late in the night, with neither one of them breaking the kisses except to embrace each other tighter. Their mouths had moved in unvoiced apologies, to one another and to themselves. It had been bittersweet, one of the most bittersweet goodbyes Elodie could remember being given.

She had been so close to asking Cullen to come with her to bed, had been close to sneaking him into her quarters so that he could spend the night wrapped in her limbs. More than anything, Elodie had wanted to be able to hold that memory with her as she traveled. But they had been interrupted by a pair of Templars walking with a Chantry Sister along the battlements. The conversation between the troops had been one of fear, one that the Sister reassured with verse and prayer. It had effectively cooled Elodie's and Cullen's lust to be reminded of such darkness lurking beyond the light. They had parted ways at Cullen’s door with reluctant hands falling away from each other's torsos. But still, even though her thoughts were tinged with slight melancholy, the memory of their parting left Elodie excited. The vague promise of something more, something to slake their mutual lust, left her pulse quickened and skin warm even now.

Another shout came, loud enough to make Elodie flinch.

“Boss!”

“What is it, Bull?” Elodie asked, her voice gruff.

“You might want some more salve. Your cheeks are already looking a bit red.”

“Your blood writing does look a bit more prominent,” Dorian mused. “Maybe it’s swelling in the sun. Do you ever worry about them getting infected?” He grunted as Bull punched his shoulder. “What! It was merely a question."

"A rude one."

"You’re going to get the wrong end of my staff across your horns if you don’t stop with that,” Dorian warned.

“What a nice looking staff it is, too,” Bull droned. “Been polishing it often?

Dorian groaned in disgust.

Elodie looked up in time for the Tevinter mage to toss her a little jar of hydrating cream, frost runes inscribed on the lid. She couldn’t very well reveal the sources of her red cheeks to the group, but she certainly didn’t need more of the cream.

“I’m fine. My hood covers most of my face,” she evaded.

“There’s skin sickness you can get if you burn in the sun,” The Iron Bull said gravely. “I’ve seen it in both elves and humans.” He paused, raising an eyebrow at Varric. “Don’t know about dwarves, though.”

“If it makes you feel better, I don't know either,” Varric chuckled. “Sunbathing isn’t a hobby for most dwarves.”

“But even if you don’t burn, nobody likes tan-lines,” Dorian replied knowingly, and Elodie resisted an eyeroll. She pulled back her gurnhide cowl and twisted the lid off of the jar. The mage leaned across his horse to try to make eye contact with the dwarf by her side. “Speaking of which, Varric? Would you like some? I can see your chest hair practically bursting into flame as we speak.”

A pause, during which the only sounds were the gently swishing of their mounts' feet through sand.

"Oh come now, no punch for that barb?" Dorian chirped towards Bull.

"I can punch you if you want."

“Here, stow the bickering and pass that shit over. It’s chilled cream you said?” Varric turned in his saddle. His hair was piled higher on his head to try to keep the heat off of his neck, and he’d crafted a kind of bandana from his cowl. Elodie tried not to watch him as he pulled his canteen from his pack and carefully took a sip. He’d been vigorously rationing his water, Elodie knew. She wondered if that was something she should be more concerned about, dying of thirst out here.

“I wouldn't say cream. You’re making it sound like a dessert-”

“Which it is _definitely_ not,” the Qunari grunted.

“It’s a frost salve that protects, cools, and hydrates,” Dorian said, touching a hand to his bare arm as if to demonstrate how effective it was. Elodie snorted; the man would’ve made a great merchant. “A Tevinter essential. Usually you Southerners don’t get this much sun, so I doubt you would’ve ever heard of it before now.” He heaved a world-weary sigh. “This is the first time I’ve been comfortable in weeks.”

“Aw, have your footsies been cold?” Bull mocked. “Need someone to rub them for you?”

“My footsies have been freezing since we got through Deauvin. They’re only now just beginning to thaw, which,” he pointed a knowing finger at the Qunari riding at his left, “is a sure sign that you all are going to burn without my help.”

Elodie balanced the lid on her saddle, then dipped her fingers into the cool salve jar. It smelled like lemongrass and some weird fruit. Dorian said it reminded him of summer, and Elodie liked it as well. What she _didn’t_ like was the way it stung at her eyes when she sweat it off her after a few minutes. She'd learned to cover with her cowl after that initial application mishap. She had to admit, it was still better than getting sick.

“I hate this place,” Elodie murmured as she rubbed the salve into her forehead and cheeks with one hand, careful to avoid her eyes. “No trees. No buildings. No green. Just sand and sun and spiders."

“You’re gonna get that shit in your mouth if you keep talking while you rub, Boss.”

Elodie barked a laugh, both at the double-entendre and the reason why he sounded so concerned for her.

Bull had been the unfortunate one to think the 'cream' was a food item on their first night. They'd been camped around the fire on the very edge of the Approach, eating, relaxing, and carrying on. He’d been looking through Dorian’s pack at the mage’s request for a spare oil rag, and he’d found the salve instead. Bull had taken a large fingerful of the stuff directly onto his tongue. He claimed it tasted like drinking ink mixed with lemon zest and fish scales, too specific a description for anyone to not take his word for it. Even so, he hadn’t spat it out.

“Hate,” Elodie mumbled out of the side of her mouth as she kept her lips tight, heeding his warning.

“C’mon Inquisitor. I would have thought the Dalish more adaptable to nature’s harshest,” Varric teased her.

“Andraste preserve me if I ever adapt to this blighted place,” Elodie cursed as she twisted the cap back on and tossed it to Varric. “I don’t presume to speak for all of the Dalish. Just for me. And I say, the sooner we’re done with this giant pile of sand, the better.”

“Good thing we’re here,” Varric said, nodding up ahead where Scout Harding was waving to them.

“Oh thank the Maker. Trees!” Elodie practically groaned in euphoria. Even though they were wrapped at the base with deathroot, and spindly, and sick-looking, they were still trees. She sent her hart into a hard gallop ahead of the rest of her party and almost landed on Scout Harding when she dismounted in a rush.

“Woah there Inquisitor!”

“Hey,” Elodie said, kicking sand off of her boots and catching the scout’s shoulder simultaneously so that she wouldn’t fall. “It’s just- it’s so good to see you.”

“My word,” Harding broke into a grin, righting herself as Elodie pushed back her cowl. “It’s good to see you too. Rough journey?”

“You could say that,” Elodie answered, swiping at her eyes with the back of her gloves. She glanced up at the trees, their meager shade, and could feel a missing piece of her click into place. Behind her, a droplet of sweat rolled down her back, her daggers trapping heat between her shoulder blades, and it reminded her why she was there in the first place. She turned back to her most trusted scout. “What can you tell me about this-” _blasted, awful, hot, dry, lifeless_ “-place?”

“We’ve scouted the area, and we have word on some mines southwest of here.” Harding nodded to the rest of Elodie’s party as they dismounted behind her and went to inspect requisitions. “There’s a keep Captain Rylen wanted you to have a look at later, but I can debrief you on that when there’s more time. The most important thing is, I have word of a structure straight south, past a valley, where we think Garrett Hawke and Warden Stroud are set to meet you.”

“Any idea what’s been going on?”

“None. But the Venatori are crawling through this desert, Inquisitor. I’d advise you to be careful and uh,” Harding sniffed at the air between them, “possibly discontinue wearing that lovely perfume of yours.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It’s very nice, but strong. You might find yourself attracting some of the local wildlife with a scent like that.”

Elodie smirked to herself, making a mental note to tell Cullen about it later in a letter.

“It’s getting late,” Dorian said softly behind her. So he had heard Harding's assessment of the cream, then. He stepped forward and tilted his head at Elodie in query. “Would you want to stay here until it’s cooler, then move out to meet Hawke once the sun is setting?”

“I think that might be best,” Elodie conceded. “The salve is helping, though, Dorian. I appreciate it.”

“My pleasure. I’ll see if I can’t recreate another version of it back in Skyhold, an odorless version.”

“Not to say it isn’t pleasant-”

“I understand,” Dorian interrupted Harding’s tiny protest, and he sighed. “I’ve only ever used it for sunbathing, so I suppose the smell never occurred to me before.”

Behind them, The Iron Bull snorted. Dorian looked as if he were bristling, gearing up for a fight, and Elodie turned back to her scout.

“Can I have you send a few ravens back to Skyhold for me?”

“Sure,” Harding said, pretending not to watch the Tevinter mage waving his staff menacingly at the unphased Qunari spy. “While you write I, uh… I might start on dinner. Food might help to cool some tempers around here.”

“Maker knows what’ll help those two,” Elodie sighed, shaking her head as Dorian growled something in Tevene.

Bull seemed to approve, grunting something akin to, "Let it out, 'Vint!"

“Five coppers says they’re in the other’s tent by the end of the trip,” Varric muttered. "Three weeks, tops."

Elodie shook her head, but as soon as Harding turned away she made sure to slip Varric a handful of coins.

“Make it ten,” she whispered. “And I give it a week.”

Varric slid her bet inside the pocket of his vest as smoothly as if he were merely readjusted a loose buckle. He nodded at her, a true smile lighting up his features for the first time all day.

“At your service, Inquisitor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short interlude with our girl and her traveling companions, longer antics to come.
> 
> Personally, the Western Approach had to really grow on me. I didn't like it at first at all. It took almost an entire other playthrough for me to appreciate it for what it is.
> 
> Hissing Wastes is another thing entirely, and the exact opposite for me XD But we'll get there with Elodie in a bit.


	19. Dealing With The Desert

The hatred Elodie felt for the Approach was multiplied tenfold when they met with Hawke and Stroud that evening at the Tevinter Tower. The sky was a beautiful array of golds and pinks, a hot wind at their faces as they approached the ruins of what once held magnificence. They were welcomed in the most unsavory manner.

With blood magic. And demons. And bullshit.

_Cullen will be thrilled_ , Elodie thought sardonically, merely a second before she was forced to draw her bow.

Elodie knew very little about the Wardens, true, but she knew enough to feel absolute disdain at the thought of them binding demons and being bound themselves for the sake of “the greater good”. Erimond had rattled off a bitter monologue, one Elodie could hardly hear past the enraged blood pumping against her eardrums. She had brought the monsters down one by one, her spiked arrowheads finding comfortable homes in the back of rage demons and shades alike.

But it wasn’t enough. Erimond had fled and evaded their blades. The Wardens remained corrupted. The scales tipped slightly in Corypheus’ favor, and it was not something that Elodie could tip back with her arrows or her force of will.

When they returned back to camp, Elodie was restless and geared up, as was Varric. He was slamming things, having difficulty standing still, and the look in his eye was one of upset and fatigue.

Elodie could tell that Bull and Dorian were both less surprised at the entire ordeal. It was as if they had merely been confirmed in their lack of faith in people to do the right thing. Elodie presumed that the Tevinter mage had seen worse, and she was positive that the Ben-Hassrath had seen ten times that. But Varric… Elodie could tell that she and the dwarf were both of the same mindset, despite what trauma’s they’d already endured. Instead of confirmed bitterness, or distant separation, she and Varric seemed to be deeply frustrated. As if it were a personal affront to them both.

They ate in silence, Dorian and Bull attempting to make easy conversation. The Iron Bull even asked Elodie, once, if she was alright. She shrugged, not sure how to answer.  _No_ was accurate.  _Alright enough to fucking rip them to shreds_ would also be accurate. She wasn't sure how to feel. Bull seemed to accept it, and when Varric and Elodie moved to the correspondence tent after their meal, the other two companions busied themselves with helping the scouts better map out the surrounding area.

Sitting across from Varric in the silence of the tent they used to write their reports, Elodie could tell that they both wanted to find something to hold onto. The scratches of his quill drove a bit of anxiety away from the situation. Yet, it still felt like there was nothing here but sand to slip through fingers.

“Varric,” Elodie said gruffly, breaking the tension.

“Yeah?”

He paused, looking up from where he was writing a letter by candelight at a table set up in the back. Elodie was trying to work on sewing a spot on her coat where a hyena had bit through the leathers. Her hands felt too clumsy, however, too big for this sort of work, and so she turned to her friend.

“I know it’s a lot to ask. But do you want to accompany me, set a few traps, see if we can’t take out a few of the raiders we found signs of? Just before we go to bed?”

The dwarf took the spectacles from his face, folding them gently and setting them aside with careful precision. When he glanced up, his eyes held the same intensity, the same too-big feeling, that Elodie knew hers did.

“It would be my pleasure, Inquisitor.”

The night was empty, devoid of anything besides the slight shushing sound of footsteps in sand, and so the two rogues easily made their way out to the path they’d seen the overturned caravan at. Silently, they tracked together. Both were seemingly grateful to have something to do, grateful their more talkative companions had stayed behind, and grateful that there was a task larger than themselves to complete.

Varric pretended not to notice when Elodie looted forgotten parcels and crates with meticulous efficiency, sifting through ripped books and broken cogs to find little figurines that she squirreled away into her pack. Elodie pretended not to notice the way Varric clung to his crossbow even as they walked through relatively empty caverns, his jaw set tight, his fingers drumming out his anxiety on its sights.

They collected elfroot, both of them running their hands reverently over the patches of green that they’d found in the valley as fennecs squeaked past them in the dark. They found no bandits, but even so, Elodie could feel another part of herself click into place.

When they returned to the camp a few hours later, the moon was high above them in the early morning hours. Varric was overburdened with deathroot samples that he unloaded at the potions table, and Elodie had also begged him to carry back three books she’d found that she hadn’t had the room for in her pack. He went to bed without a word to her, pulling the flap back on his tent and immediately extinguishing the lamp. Elodie took no offense to his silence.

She stood watch with the other scouts instead of going to the tent she shared with the dwarf, moving along the ridges and climbing into the trees at their camp’s perimeter to try to make herself feel more at home in the barren wasteland. Above them, a few stars peeked out from behind a veil of smoky clouds.

It wasn’t right. None of this place was right.

She had heard tell of the Western Approach’s sky being lit up by all kinds of lights, dancing in beautiful colors, as if all the beauty in the area had fled to the skies after the blight. She’d read about there being a kind of clarity out in the desert that living near larger cities or even further south just could not imitate.

But there was nothing. No matter how hard Elodie looked up, there was nothing.

Scout Harding woke up for the last watch of the night, and as she watched the dwarf approach her high spot on a dune, Elodie realized she hadn’t slept all night. Her bones buzzed with energy, with tension, and it was as if Harding could sense it. Without a word, she joined Elodie where she was standing on the eastern ridge above their camp, the one that overlooked the valley that dipped below them, and beyond that the shaded hints at a mass of stones making up a fortress could be seen on the horizon. Maybe it was the keep Rylen was interested in. Maybe it was another Venatori nest. Who could tell from this distance? The two women stood quietly for a second, breathing in the desert air as they contemplated their morning thoughts, until Elodie felt a tap on her forearm.

“Here Inquisitor,” Harding whispered, handing Elodie a tin cup of something warm. She took it and brought it up to her lips, inhaling. Apples. “It’s chilly before the sun, isn’t it?” the dwarf continued.

“Mmm,” Elodie nodded, sipping the flavored tea gingerly. “Better than the heat.”

“I hear you.”

“Do dwarves burn?” she asked, and Scout Harding laughed in response like she was shocked. Elodie flushed. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong, that came out very wrong. I just meant that, Dorian made this salve for our skin, and Bull said that-”

“I understand,” Harding laughed, stopping Elodie’s embarrassed stammering. She looked positively tickled, but she answered in the same tone of voice she gave reports of the area. “Dwarves don’t get the same burns that humans do from being in the sun. Weird, right? You’d think we’d get crispier, what with our connection to the Stone and aversion to the sky. But nope.” Harding held out her bare arms. “Some of us just freckle.”

Elodie smiled. Harding’s freckles were a thing of envy, something she secretly wished she had. It looked like the little dwarf had been splattered with a thickly bristled paintbrush coated in copper. Elodie’s skin was light brown, darker still over the crest of her cheeks and forehead from being outside as much as she was, but alas… no freckles.

“Elves get a different kind of burn entirely, depending on where they’re from. You’re Wycome stock, right, Inquisitor?”

Elodie nodded.

“Your clan’s closer to Antiva. You’ve got a bit of a darker complexion than… oh, say, Brecilian clans might. So you’re not going to necessarily get crisped up either.”

“How do you know all of this?” Elodie asked. Elodie herself didn’t even know all of that offhand. She’d never heard of skin sickness before talking with Bull, though, either.

“I’m your number one, top notch, bestest scout,” Harding smiled, sipping her own tin cup of apple tea. “It’s my job to know a little bit of everything about everything.”

“How could the Inquisition ever hope to deserve you?” Elodie asked, grinning.

“You could increase my hazard pay,” Harding teased. “That might be a start.”

“So… does this mean I don’t have to wear the salve?”

“No, you definitely should,” Harding laughed, steam from her tea billowing out before her. “Elven burns don’t manifest in the same way they do on humans, but they still hurt. There’s no blistering the way you see in humans, but the sickness is still there.”

Elodie sighed. She was reminded of when she had fallen asleep on top of a large rock by the coast as a young child. Her father had likened her to a fried egg for a week, but the stinging fever in her skin and lightness in her head had subsided after that. Like Harding said, there had been no blisters. Was that the sun sickness they spoke of?

Many months ago, Elodie had looked on pitifully when Cassandra had burned when they went exploring in the Hinterlands. The Seeker had been too warm to keep her helmet on, but had no salve with her. After they’d returned to Haven, Cassandra had commissioned a different helmet, and a cooling salve from Adan not unlike the one Dorian used now. Elodie didn’t remember Adan's salve smelling particularly nice, and she had refused to wear it. Maybe if she had, her skin wouldn't be as uneven where the sun had kissed it.

“But you don’t have to wear as much as that one apostate elf of yours would have to,” Harding added, probably mistaking Elodie’s contemplative silence for brooding. “What’s his name again… Solas?” She made a noise. “I would worry about him out here.”

“Me too,” Elodie confided softly.

However, her worry for Solas stemmed not because of the sun, but because of the lack of trees.

She was Dalish, sure, so she felt the lack of green rather heavily. But she wasn’t even _that_ fussed of a Dalish. Her father had taken her to shemlen inns as a child, had her grow up playing with human children inside of warm houses while he offered medicine or tools to their parents for trade. Sometimes she wondered if someone like Solas, someone who cared viciously about the true ancient ways and Elvhen tradition, experienced her own culture more deeply than she did. It shamed her, in a way she didn’t like admitting.

She took another sip of tea, trying not to think about how she had deliberately not invited him along.

“Where is Solas from, anyway?” Harding asked.

“I’m not sure, actually.”

“You’ve never talked about it? I thought you two were close,” she murmured. Then, as if she had remembered that Elodie was the Inquisitor, Harding straighened up and swallowed hard. “It’s alright though, I was merely curious. Making conversation. Ah, sorry if that overstepped a boundary, your Worship.”

“Oh no, not at all,” Elodie said, wishing she could come up with something more to say to the woman trying at her side. She wanted to be a good companion. Even as she sipped her drink, though, she couldn’t think of anything further to say. Scout Harding gave a little sigh.

“This isn’t a very good segue. But you’ve helped us a great deal, what with the lazurite survey and samples you turned today, and I wanted to thank you.” Harding turned back to the valley, seemingly admiring the view as the sun began to rise before them. Soft pinks began to dapple the mountains, and the light around them started very slowly to turn gray from its nightly dark blue. “Will you be heading back to Skyhold from here?” her scout asked, in a voice as gentle as the flickering sunlight.

“I don’t know,” Elodie whispered, in awe for the first time of the desert before her. She still hated it... but less so. “I probably should.”

“If it’s not too bold of me, Inquisitor, could I offer up another idea?”

“You may.”

“Stay for a while. You could update everyone from here. We’re well-supplied, thanks to Sister Nightingale’s route from Emprise. I mean, that is, if you felt you had time. Maybe you could stay here for a bit longer and seek out the fortress Knight-Captain Rylen talked about before you go back?”

Elodie said nothing, but it certainly was an option. Even if she felt like leaving this place, maybe she would dislike it less if she were given reasons to care about it, if she found things to do to improve it. She said nothing, though, and Harding offered up one final point in lieu of Elodie's silence.

“It would give us a real foothold out here, your Worship. And personally, I’d feel safer leaving troops in more than fabric tents in a place like this.”

“As would I,” Elodie answered. She sighed heavily. “Alright. I’ll stay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Definitely,” Elodie offered a smile for the scout, and Harding responded in kind.

"Thank you, Inquisitor. I'll make sure you're well stocked for your missions, don't you worry."

It was incredibly endearing. Elodie turned back to the valley before her, the sunrise fast approaching now.

“How quickly could someone get here from Skyhold, do you think, if it was an emergency?” she murmured.

“Depends,” Harding said, lowering her cup a bit. “It takes at least twenty days on the routes you secured, if you’re stopping often. But if you’ve got a mount worth its mettle, you could probably make it in two weeks. Why? Who did you have in mind?”

“Just a couple of people to relieve my party members,” Elodie said. She paused, bit her lower lip, and then blurted, “Scout Harding, can I ask you something in return?”

“Sure.”

“If you were a drink, what drink would you be?”

It was the closest thing to conversational banter she could come up with, but the dwarf at her side seemed veritably pleased.

“Well that’s easy. My mom’s white apple tea.” Harding tipped her tin cup to Elodie in a mock toast, and they sipped the warm beverage at the same time. Hints of cinnamon and allspice lingered on their tongues.

“It suits you,” Elodie agreed. It soothed her enough to face the day, much like Scout Harding’s presence in the expansive wasteland did for her sense of security.

 

* * *

 

It was difficult to write sometimes, but Elodie still tried to do so every day. She would take a few minutes throughout the day to write a regular report for Leliana, and then she would focus most of her free time on a note to send personally to the Commander. For the most part, she kept her letters to Cullen in list form, as she’d warned him she would most likely be doing. She began to receive responses right after the confrontation in the old Tevinter tower, and her advisors seemed keen to keep her in the loop as best and as quickly they could.

Josephine sent a missive refusing to send Elodie Orlesian letters while she was already facing so much difficulty in the west, and Leliana sent her a list of improvements she was overseeing at Skyhold in Elodie's absence. But Elodie’s favorite so far was from Cullen, in regards to her hatred of sand and her ramblings about junk she had been hoarding along the journey to the Approach.

_Elodie,_

_Take care to stay hydrated, thirst can sneak up on you in such conditions._

_I’ll have to remember that you’re not fond of sand- perhaps it rules out a trip to the beach in our future. Although maybe the beach would still be enjoyable for you, seeing as there would be ocean water readily accessible to wash off the grit? Forgive me, I am not planning anything in particular. We would never be able to find the time. But such musings are diverting enough to distract me from the persistent headache I am nursing today. Maybe the thought of such a trip someday in the future can ease your misgivings about the landscape you find yourself in, too._

_Personally, before your letters I had never heard of sun-sickness in elves either, but I side with Dorian. Please wear the cooling salve as often as possible, even if it’s slightly uncomfortable or pungent. The thought of you ill on top of being so far away is not something I’m willing to entertain._

_I’m happy to hear that you have more ideas for trinkets you’ll make in the future. I admire your creativity. Josephine was talking about earrings she found in Val Royeaux the other day, some dangly things that were too expensive. Maybe that could inspire you further in your craft? As for your request of me, don’t worry. I want for nothing. For the most part, anyway._

_Please update me on your current state when you get a chance. I do not mean report-wise, either, Elodie. I'm anxious to hear how you are handling the stress of the mission, not as Commander to Inquisitor. I will write as often as I can, and I apologize for not being in a stricter habit of it. I hope you can forgive my inattentiveness in the face of an earnest admission: I much prefer Skyhold with your presence within its walls._

Here there was a large black scrawl. Something was scratched out, something he must have written and then rethought. And then the letter was signed with merely-

_Cullen Rutherford_

When she held the letter up to the light, she could only make out two words from the many the lines were drawn through: _for me_. After that, Cullen had still signed his full name, but at least this time he had left off his title. Elodie was happy with the small victories therein, and she kept the letter tucked in her bedroll as she slept. It was a comfort having the faint smell of violets near her, even if she was only imagining it.

When she next had a free moment, she wrote him back. Varric pretended not to notice the way she tapped her quill against her lip, flicking tiny blots of ink accidentally onto the page below as she thought. He joked about her writing more often than him, which Elodie found endearing and also impossible. Still, having him nearby always seemed to help the ink flow.

_Cullen,_

_I hope you’re doing well today and that your headache passes. You seem to be getting a few of those lately, are you sleeping enough?_

_Don’t answer that. I think I can picture your face, and it gives me a kind of warped pleasure to imagine you narrowing your eyes at my question. How I miss teasing you._

_All joking aside, you need to make sure you sleep deeply when you settle into bed. Apparently a human tradition is to drink warm milk before laying down? You can also try chewing a bit of Arbor Blessing, that would work for my father when he could not sleep for the pain. I left some of that herb with the quartermaster by the tavern, but have yet to try to cultivate it in the garden. Also, try to think of comforting things to clear your mind before you even close your eyes. Let me know if this helps:_

_A trip to the beach, for instance, and the freedom to swim in clear water with you is a very soothing thought indeed. Additionally, I would make my favorite seafood dishes for you. Are you adept at fishing? I doubt they let you practice that in Templar training, so you can leave that to me. Maybe make us a fire? But anyway, imagine for a moment that we could catch ourselves a fresh meal by the sea. Perhaps you can play such a scene in your mind’s eye before you drift off tonight? At the very least it could inspire interesting dreams. Hopefully no nightmares of how poor you are with a fishing rod._

_Maker. That's the happiest thing I've written in days! Let's pray this letter makes it to you intact!_

_Also, I must confess. If I were with you, Cullen, I think that I could tolerate the sand. Barely._

_As far as an update on my own mental health, which I was hesitant to send to Leliana and Josephine... I’m still reeling from the news of the Wardens. I’m not feeling very myself at the moment. Is this how you felt with the news from Haven? I feel overwhelmed and empty. I don't know how anybody can expect me to deal with this. I don't know how to make words flow that aren't angry or lonely, so I almost did not write to even you._

_However, I’ve managed to write you every day up until now, and I don’t want to get out of the habit. It helps. And now we have this imagery of a future at a beach somewhere to enjoy in the meantime, so that is something._

_I hope it’s okay that this letter doesn’t contain one of my lists. I tried to make one, but it was frustratingly small and plaintive, so I threw it out. Also, I look forward to your letters, but I know how busy you are, so don’t trouble yourself to write more often than you already are. It delights me that you imagine me near you in the small moments. I often find myself imagining the same._

_Nothing feels right out here. I want to come home, but the work isn’t done._

_I want to be in a place with trees. Fuck, how I miss trees. If I’m allowed to choose where we go on this fantasy escape of ours, I would choose a place surrounded by trees and greenery and quiet. Such a sweet thought, that._

_I’ll be sending Varric back with Hawke soon. Can you make sure they get a chance to relax? None of this is anything they could have predicted but they’re both isolating after the fact. I’m positive Varric blames himself, even though we haven’t spoken of it yet, but I don’t know Hawke well enough to conjecture what he’s feeling._

_I hope you sleep well when you get a chance to, Cullen. Maker knows I’m trying._

_All my best,_

_Elodie_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate keeping these two apart, but I am an absolute sucker for letters back and forth <3


	20. Sand And Lullabies

The next week was bittersweet. Dorian refused to be sent back to Skyhold, citing numerous occasions where he’d been there to cast barrier over ‘our beloved magically-challenged Inquisitor’, but both The Iron Bull and Varric seemed all too happy to follow Hawke back to their base of operations. Secretly, Elodie was happy that Dorian had stuck around. He had a way about him that both distracted her and calmed her, even as he unleashed playful sarcasm at the height of every hour like some demented cuckoo clock.

Elodie wondered absently if this was what having a sibling felt like. He teased her gently about Cullen, but she gave nothing away. She would then pry into his personal life, which he would shoot down with laughter and mustache-twirls. After breakfast, as they rode, he would read at her side and pipe up when he came across interesting passages. Once, when a raider made him drop his book in the dirt, Elodie got to hear him swear in Tevene for the first time. She did not let him live it down.

Through all the teasing and borderline flirtatious ribbing they gave one another, Elodie felt at ease around the mage. She could not sense any attraction between the two of them, even though he was a very handsome man. She suspected the mustache had something to do with it. Dorian reminded her of her childhood friend’s father, in a way, and that put an end to any magnetism he might have held for her.

They explored the desert gingerly together, bringing back quillback spines to camp and unloading sacks of sandblasted valuables on the requisition table. For the most part, the intense heat of the day combined with the cold of night left Elodie so exhausted that she didn’t dream when she finally managed to sleep. It didn’t dawn on her to be wary of this, to be suspicious of the lack of nighttime disturbances. She should have known not to take it for granted.

After a week of enquiry and defensive fighting, she and Dorian had finally found another perfect place to set up camp. The best part? It was out of reach of the White Claw Raiders that roamed and posed almost as much of a threat in the Approach as the Venatori. Elodie and Dorian been fighting so much and against such tough wildlife that Elodie’s blades had dulled and one bowstring had snapped, giving her a smart welt along the length of her forearm despite the leather she wore.

She spent a full evening sharpening and repairing her weapons while she sorted through schematics. She was hoping one might offer her stronger alternatives to her armor upon her return to Skyhold. In her next letter to Cullen, she'd ask him if he had any advice. With that comforting thought in mind, Elodie took to her bedroll and curled up to sleep.

That night, she found herself very clearly in the desert by herself, but couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. She was walking back to the tower where she had confronted the twisted puppetmaster Erimond. The sand beneath her feet felt too warm, too alive, and she could smell crumbling deathroot nearby. A cry came from within the tower and she immediately bolted up the steps, taking them two at a time until the top. But instead of Erimond binding the Wardens inside, another scene was waiting for Elodie when she reached the tower apex.

She was watching herself. It was a darker version of herself, one positively sparking with red energy, but it was definitely herself nonetheless.

She stood at the back of the tower where Erimond had been only weeks ago, and Elodie watched as the alternate her cracked her neck once, twice, a third time. That version of Elodie raised her arm out to beckon the party forward, to gesture to those she was in control of. A week ago, such a gesture had been made over the Wardens, and they had raised their arms in answer. In place of the Wardens, however, there were only children lined up in a row. Elodie, the real Elodie, rushed up to them and dropped to her knees. Baelam’s daughters were before her, their eyes glowing red, their mouths dripping ruby crystals as they wailed.

The shadow-Elodie raised her arm higher, and the daughters complied by screaming louder. It reminded Elodie of a warning bell, the kind that she would sometimes hear in nearby cities to alert the populace to a fire or a landslide. It was the kind of noise that signaled her Keeper to gather the little ones and prepare the aravel to leave. She clapped her hands over her ears, tried to block out their cries, but it seemed only to amplify the noise. She hunched over, but the symphony only grew.

Behind her, Elodie heard cracks of arrows being nocked and let loose, nocked and let loose, the pace so steady it could have been a metronome to the dissonance of the screaming before her. She crawled forward, the tower stones moving like piles of sand under her palms and knees, to try to stop her other self and get her to lower her arm so that silence would fall once more on the desert. As she reached out, Elodie caught sight of the blue bracelet around her wrist.

Blue, not purple. Dreaming again. She was only dreaming. The arrows behind her increased in their volley, and it sounded as if several archers were concentrating their efforts on one groaning target.

“This is not real,” she whispered. She could not hear her own words over the sound of several dozen arrows flying, but she repeated them anyway. “This is not real. I will wake up.”

She could feel herself fading back to reality, could feel her hands clutching physical sand beneath her, and yet curiosity got the better of her. She turned away from her dream self and the children under its control, turned back to where the arrows were flying, and let out a strangled cry at the image before her.

Kannara, no taller than Elodie’s thigh, was shooting at a snow-covered pile of bodies. The ice had turned a sickly crimson, brown in some places, vibrant red in others, as if the corpses buried in the snow were still living but had been bleeding for hours. The girl let loose another arrow, and it split into a dozen, then a dozen more, and finally arced into the cold pile of flesh and frost. The pile let loose a noise, a familiar groan, and Elodie could see the mangled corpses of dozens of Templars lying twisted and still breathing.

“Kannara, stop!” she yelled, her words a silent scream.

The young one looked up at Elodie and, as the dream tightened into reality, she held up her finger to her lips as if it would be their little secret. And then, as her own mouth opened to spill forth crushed red crystals, she turned her final notched arrow towards the Inquisitor.

Elodie woke up with a cry, a little moan that turned into a harsh gasp. She kicked out, turning in her bedroll to try to get to the ground. She needed to feel the ground in her hands. Cold sand beneath her blankets, beneath the floor of the tent, and she couldn’t get to it. Elodie could feel dark anxiety threatening to pull her under and render her unconscious once more, as if the dreams were physically clawing at her mind to come back to them. She could still see the bodies of her soldiers, the look of blank cruelty on Baelam’s youngest daughter’s face, and she couldn’t reconcile it in the dark with what she knew to be true. She wanted to go back to Skyhold, to check on everyone, she could not rest until she knew they were safe.

But she wouldn’t know. She would never know if this vision came true or not, she’d be too far to get back in time to help.

Sobs came, the images of the little girls burned into her mind’s eye, and Elodie held up a trembling hand to try to cover her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision was blurring, panic ate at her ribs beneath her sternum, adrenaline shot into her spine and kept her upright. She couldn’t breathe. Elodie made a noise as she gasped for air, a wretched cry for help that filled the tent too loudly. She hadn’t meant for it to be so loud. She gasped, inhaling as deep as she could, but her lungs would not fill.

Dorian was at her side in an instant, shushing her as she drew shallow, hiccuping breaths. He crawled beside her on the bedroll, a soothing hand at her shoulder, and Elodie collapsed onto him.

Gathering her to his chest, Dorian whispered words of comfort that Elodie could not hear. She turned into him to cry harder, and he brought his fingers to cover her mouth and nose. He must have done something to the air around her mouth; he was cupping his hand and holding it to her face like a mask, telling her to breathe slowly. She tried to obey, but it was so hard.

The air Dorian held to her mouth was cool. The way it was near the lake in Haven, nestled in a forest, surrounded by snowy trees. It was fresh, soothing, and familiar.

Pain began to lessen in her lungs, only slightly, just enough for her to breathe in deeply and cry more easily. Satisfied that she was not going to drive herself into a faint, Dorian moved his palm away from her nose and mouth. The mage sent a few firefly-like lights into the air around them with a flick of his fingers, the tiny things floating like dust motes on the air above them.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Don’t fuss now, I’ve got you.”

She couldn’t even get out his name, but she sat up with him, hugging him as she shook unashamed in her fear. The remnants of the dream haunted her, the visions of the children screaming and the bodies twitching and the horrid way they’d looked half-eaten in the snow. Closing her eyes she saw crystallized tongues and chipped eyes, red and sparking like the corrupted lyrium they’d found by the breach.

So often when she went after bandits, their death cries stayed with her long after they were gone. But to see children making those noises… Elodie couldn’t suppress the horror. Every time she closed her eyes, Elodie saw Kannara telling her to keep it a secret as she shot arrows with a bow too large for her toddler frame. Instead of closing her eyes, Elodie looked up at the flickers of light above her, trying to think about stars as Dorian moved her into his lap.

After a moment, when her panic seemed to be finally abating, Elodie realized that Dorian was humming and rocking her. Too tired to be embarrassed, too empty to be anything but grateful, she stayed in his arms until he finished the song he was singing quietly to himself.

“Feeling better, are we?” he asked gently.

Elodie nodded, swiping at her face.

“Sit up, then, let me have a look at you.”

Elodie sat up across from him as he slowly conjured a little patch of fire in the palm of his hands, shaped almost like a waterlily. It radiated no heat, merely a glow of bright light. He held it up between them, and with his other hand he held onto Elodie’s shoulder.

“You don’t seem to have any lasting damage.”

“None physically anyway,” she scoffed, and Dorian raised an eyebrow in response.

“That must have been some dream to rattle you like that, Inquisitor, if you-”

“Elodie,” she said, flinching at how loud her voice was. She tried again. "My name's Elodie."

“Apologies. Elodie,” Dorian immediately corrected, his voice low and kind. There was a hesitant silence between them, and luckily the mage knew how to amend it. “You know,” he said softly, “sometimes talking about something that causes us pain helps to lessen that pain. Sometimes saying it aloud reminds us of what is real, and what isn’t.”

“I already know it wasn’t real.”

“Well then tell me just to indulge my morbid curiosity,” he said with a tiny grin.

She laughed, almost frustrated that he could draw that noise from her so easily. She shook her head to clear it, pulling her curls over one shoulder as she tried to regain some dignity. He extinguished the fire lily with a tiny flick of his wrist, and the darkness helped. She could look at the fireflies above her and be calmed.

“I… I saw children.” She clenched her jaw hard and then swiped her eyes clear of tears, taking a few deep, steadying breaths. “I saw children who I knew, who I recognized. They looked like they were made of glowing lyrium, just like the Wardens we saw before with Hawke. And they were screaming.”

Dorian made a noise, his hand tightening at her shoulder.

“Not that it was a pleasant experience to begin with, but it’s worse to think of the same situation with children. They’ve got no business being made to suffer.”

For some reason that gave her pause. Maybe it was the tone of voice Dorian held, one different from the elevated snark she was used to. Or maybe it was the proximity of his face to hers that made her blink up at him in surprise. Either way, Elodie focused on him in the dim light and felt a thump of surprise in her chest.

There was still nothing between them. Given the situation, there would normally be some attraction right? She couldn't recall ever being held in someone's lap without feeling a bit uneasy, or a bit too warm. But with Dorian, she felt nothing. No unease. No trepidation. No sense of violation. He was simply there, with her, at the same time she was. She marveled vaguely at how good that felt.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asked. “If you’re about to be sick, the least you could do is warn a man.”

Elodie laughed again, shoving his shoulder gently even as she hugged him. He returned her embrace, and when they parted she noticed he avoided her gaze.

“I think I’ll be okay. Thanks to you.” She tilted her head to one side, narrowing her eyes. “I didn’t know you could sing.”

“Surprise. I can sing.”

“You didn’t sing after Haven.”

Dorian laughed out loud.

“What, and ruin the beautiful harmony of the faithful masses?” He shook his head. “I was a little too angry then to sing anyway.”

“Ah.”

“Plus, I was never any good at playing the Chantry choir boy,” Dorian teased. “Unlike a certain handsome someone from Kirkwall.”

“Who, Varric?”

“You’re too smart to do stupid well, Elodie,” Dorian drawled.

“Hmm. A certain handsome someone isn’t technically _from_ Kirkwall. He wasn’t born there, he just worked there.”

Dorian smirked as if Elodie had proven his point instead of the other way around. A particularly nasty gust of wind outside sent the tent shaking, and Elodie hated how she immediately clung to the front of Dorian’s tunic once more. The noise reminded her of the screaming, and it took her a minute to recover. Dorian’s hands never hesitated. They held her tightly until she was ready to draw back from him once more, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“So…” she tried to shift the convesation away from herself. “Can I ask what you were singing?”

“That? Just a little lullaby. Something my mother sang to me when I was still young.”

“Did you have any bad dreams back then?”

“No. But I craved her attention at all times. Some might even say I was a little brat.”

“Was?” Elodie teased.

“Yes. I’ve become a much larger one now,” Dorian replied, pursing his lips at her in an expression of easygoing disinterest. “So, when I was very little, I said that I had trouble falling asleep. She would come sit on the edge of my bed, make sure I was comfortable, and then sing to me.”

“Was she a good singer?”

“The best,” Dorian said immediately. “And this lullaby… It was beautiful, as you can imagine, and it was exclusively mine.” He heaved a great sigh, one probably meant to conceal just how wistful the conversation actually made him. “When I got older, anytime something was incredibly scary or difficult, I’d find that same lullaby tune stuck in my head. It felt appropriate, to bring it out now.”

He smiled, and Elodie saw briefly that he wasn’t joking. That was a true facet to him he’d just shown her. She had to tread carefully from here, make sure he didn’t regret sharing anything personal with her.

“I appreciate it, Dorian.”

“Don’t mention it.” His lips slowly curved into a devious smile. “Or do mention it, if you like. Half the Inquisition already thinks we’re sleeping together.”

“Do they?” Elodie asked, the thought never having occurred to her even as she adjusted his tunic more squarely on his shoulders. They traveled together everywhere, had long chats easily over their meals, and seemed to understand each other well. But … more than friends? The thought didn’t sit right with her.

“I know, scary, isn’t it?” he chuckled. “Don’t worry. There’s also a rumor that I’m sleeping with Cullen and Cassandra.”

“At the same time?” Elodie sputtered. Dorian laughed out loud, and she tried vainly to cover her blush with both of her hands. “Ugh. Nevermind. I don’t want to know.”

“For the record, separately. If that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t. And for the record, you have an awful cowlick,” she said, motioning to the left side of his head, trying to change the subject.

“There’s our girl,” Dorian chuckled. “Focused on the important things. Like helping me to preserve my pristine self-image, even as we sleep in the shite-ridden desert.”

Elodie beamed at him in the flickering light and Dorian seemed to decide that she was fine. He pushed her gently so that she rolled away from him, freeing him to move back to his own side of the tent. She then settled back down into her bedroll to try to force herself to calm down. The wind whipping the tent outside was still a distraction, but they had more walking to do tomorrow. She would need a few hours more of rest if she could get it.

They spoke nothing more of it, not of the immediate reaction Dorian had had nor of the way he had rocked her in his arms without a trace of abashedness. Elodie wondered vaguely how he knew to respond so immediately, so comfortingly, but she could sense it was a discussion for another time. Dorian left the little fireflies of magic light illuminating the tent even after he crawled back to his bedroll and fell asleep, and it was the only reason Elodie could doze off again so quickly.

When dawn came, she woke up feeling stretched thin, like pounded gold leaf barely hanging onto a picture frame. Too fragile. It made her restless, but she didn’t think she could sleep anymore, not for a while. Listlessly, with her brain abuzz in a dull static, she drafted a letter to the Commander.

_Cullen,_

_I can't sleep. I am exhausted, pushed further than I thought my body could physically be pushed over the course of a long period of time. Yet sleep does not come as a comfort to me. These painful, horrible images visit me when my guard is down. I should have expected them to come while I was out here. I thought the nightmares at Haven were dark, but the ones I have now seem to stick with me for longer. You would think I would get used to such trauma, wouldn't you? But, unlike at Haven, I do not have a beautiful snowy lake to walk beside with a handsome former-Templar. I am left to my own devices to try to recover from such a dream, which is why I'm writing to you._

_I'm sorry. I know I promised to write you only the good things, but that is becoming harder and harder for me to do. So instead of burdening you with more of my complaints, I’ll list the things at Skyhold that I miss the most, the things I’m most eager to return back to, in no particular order._

  1. _The gardens. First thing I’m doing when I next see fresh grass is to roll around in it like a mabari._
  2. _The stained glass in my quarters. Did I ever show you what I chose for it? It’s the phases of the moon. It makes me want to sleep on my balcony. Do you think that would be unbecoming of the Inquisitor?_
  3. _Those little cakes that Josephine talks about. Look, this one is a technicality. I know they aren't actually at Skyhold. But I’ve never had one, and I’m eager to return to the possibility of MAYBE having one in the future… if I just stick around Josie long enough I'm positive she'll buy a case for us to share eventually. I would buy them myself but I don't want to risk getting the wrong kind. You know how Val Royeaux's markets can be._
  4. _The stables. I like the smell of hay, and seeing what toys Blackwall has been carving for the children lately. Doesn’t he remind you of a gruff but lovable uncle at times? Don’t tell him I said so. He takes himself quite seriously._
  5. _The baths. I feel like I need a good, long soak in something fragrant. Speaking of which, ser, do you perfume your letters to me? They smell like you._
  6. _Redcurrant jam and honey tea in the mornings while you and I go over reports together._
  7. _Chess games in the evenings while you and I talk about our families, whether I win or lose. I still can't figure out if you let me win or not, last time._
  8. _Long, calming walks on the battlements where I can hold your hand freely._
  9. _Long, private walks on the battlements where we can slink off into the shadows to use our hands more effectively on one another._
  10. _You. Most especially you._



_As to your question earlier, yes, I do plan on improving the tower as soon as I get back. Don't do anything with it yet! I’ve marked several quarry sites out here, Scout Harding said she would have those reports to you shortly. Probably by the time you’ve gotten this letter, so just be a little patient for me please! I know Vivienne and Josephine are a bit forceful when they set their mind to renovations, but just try to avoid them._

_I am also very interested in the blackberry waffles you said Josephine brought back for you and Leliana. You saved one for me, right? Will it be stale by the time I return? I don't care, I would eat it stale. It will be nice to eat something other than jerky and hardtack when I return._

_I hate to come back to it, but my mind is still musing over the nightmare a bit. Dreams are horrid things, aren’t they? Just when you think you’ve got a handle on them, they rear their nightmarish heads and prove you wrong. I hate them. It helps that Dorian knows how to magic me a nightlight of sorts, and he was by my side in an instant when I startled myself awake. Not being alone helped. I used to be scared of the dark, I think I told you that already, right? I sometimes feel that fear creeping back, but it’s not so bad. It’s easy to wake up in the morning at least._

_Have I mentioned that it’s dawn as I write this? I hope my handwriting is legible, as I can barely see it. Maker knows what kind of interpretations you’ll take on my words otherwise. Here, just to be certain, let me praise your **s t r o n g   a r m s**  and leave no space for misunderstanding! _

_But really, writing to you helps more than any nightlight could. I already feel less fragile for having done it. And I know that this letter must be a mad monstrosity of a thing at this point, with very little structure or cohesion. But I refuse to check back over it for any spelling errors, inconsistencies, or asides. It will mirror me more accurately in this way._

_Maybe I’ll have a second letter, more thoughtfully composed, to send to you later today. When I can see more clearly. And only if you’re very, very lucky._

_All my best,_

_Elodie_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're ending on another Elodie-letter, aren't we! Don't worry. Cullen's corresponding reply will be arriving shortly.
> 
> I have to say, too, I love the bff path that an Inquisitor can take with Dorian very much, and Elodie was very fond of him. I imagine that he tones down his reactions when he's one-on-one with someone he enjoys: still uncomfortable with too many heartfelt emotions at once, but better at soothing them.


	21. Correspondence From The Commander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Western Approach has almost been won. We've this chapter and one more before our party gets to set foot within Skyhold once more!

Two weeks after Elodie’s midnight panic attack, she and Dorian had slowly made their way south and found an Orlesian researcher. After a conversation that left Elodie feeling simultaneously impressed and suspicious, they were ready to move on. The requisitions officer approached Elodie as she was making her way past to try to find signs of dragon attacks.

“Message for you, ser.”

“What is it?”

“Lady Pentaghast sent word to notify you that she has arrived at base camp. She awaits you eagerly. She… said not to include that last part,” the officer said, trailing off as they realized they’d blurted Cassandra’s entire message by mistake.

“Thank you,” Elodie said, sending the officer on their way. Jogging back to where she'd left Dorian examining gurn guts, she gave a little smile. "Guess the dragon will have to wait," she sighed. "Cassandra's just arrived."

“Goodie,” Dorian said with narrowed eyes. Elodie shot him a playful glare, and the mage held up his hands as if in self-defense. “I’m being serious. I’ve missed the way she just,” Dorian clenched his fist in mock admiration, “Cassandra’s the hell out of everything.”

“She’s a verb now?”

“Yes, synonymous with punching, I assume.”

“Come on, you,” Elodie said, whistling for her mount. “It’ll be an hour’s ride at least. We should get going before that sandstorm over the reach threatens us any further.”

“And then where to?”

“We’ve almost established all the possible camps Harding marked for me on the map,” Elodie said as she mounted her yet-unnamed hart. “Maybe it’s time we tackle the keep?”

“A challenge,” Dorian purred. “I like the sound of that.”

They both snapped the reigns on their mounts and set off, a trail of dust behind them as they rode hard further north.

By the time they got to base camp, Elodie felt dusty and brittle, as if she herself were made of sand. She would need more of that cooling salve, and she made a mental note to share it with Cassandra as she slowed her hart and dismounted. She barely had two feet on the ground when she was tackled from behind.

“Inky!”

“Andraste’s arse, Sera!” Elodie sputtered, spitting sand. The elf was hugging her hard, and luckily Sera's armor was mostly imperial vestment cotton and light layers of mail, or else Elodie would have been crushed underneath of it. Still, Sera’s single everite pauldron dug uncomfortably into Elodie’s shoulder as she tightened the embrace. “Get off! You’re going to crush me.”

“Crush you? So much for missing me back, you ingrate,” Sera mumbled, her arms still tight. “I heard what they talked about, with the blood magic and the Wardens and the things going tits up. ‘Scuse me if I’m glad you’re alive.”

Elodie could feel Sera shift her weight slightly so that Elodie could get into the pushup position and try to lift herself. With difficulty, especially because of the sand beneath her hands and knees, Elodie slowly drew both herself and Sera up to standing. When she had her footing about her, she shifted and returned Sera’s embrace.

“You know I missed you,” she said, a begrudging smile on her face.

"Shut up," Sera replied, hugging her tighter.

“How touching,” Dorian said, his tone deadpan. “I’m feeling a tad left out. Cassandra, be a dear and cling to my neck, would you?”

“You cannot be serious,” the Seeker grumbled.

“You know I missed you,” he volleyed back in the same tone of voice Elodie had just used, and Elodie looked up in time to see Cassandra crack a smile.

“Inquisitor,” Cassandra said, inclining her head over at Elodie.

“How was the trip?” Elodie asked, letting go of Sera, who immediately ran to Elodie’s hart. Half-turning, Elodie shouted, “She is not named, and she’s going to stay that way!”

Sera made a noise of derision that sounded very much like a belch.

Elodie turned back to Cassandra with as neutral an expression as she could muster. Still, she’d be lying if she hadn’t sent for Sera for this exact reason. Her lackadaisical attitude in the face of grave danger was a nice change of pace.

“For the record, I, too, missed you,” the Seeker said in a deadpan. Elodie laughed out loud, reaching out to taking Cassandra’s outstretched hand.

“No hug for me, then?”

“It is too hot to touch. Maybe later.”

Elodie beamed, and Cassandra blatantly ignored Dorian’s face of overly dramatic shock.

“To answer your question, Inquisitor, the journey was tough, but we expected it. We hardly stopped so that we could reach you as quickly as possible,” Cassandra said, shaking her head at the way Sera was kissing Elodie’s hart on the nose. She turned back to Elodie and lowered her voice. “I heard that you intend to storm the keep within the next few days?”

“I’d like to, yes.”

“And you intend to return to Skyhold when our forces are lodged there?”

“Yes, of course,” Elodie furrowed her brow. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Cassandra cast a sidelong glance Dorian’s way, then slid her eyes towards Sera. The mage caught the meaning immediately.

“Sera?” he sang out. “I have something for that burn of yours.”

“What burn?”

“The large red stripe across your nose and ears, you silly git.”

“You watch your language around a lady!” Sera snapped, covering the unnamed hart’s downy ears with her palms.

“Just come here.”

Once Dorian had lured Sera further out of earshot, Cassandra walked off with Elodie at her side. The Seeker heaved a sigh.

“Do you remember what Josephine told you about when we first arrived in Skyhold, in regards to Empress Celene?”

“Vaguely.” Elodie paused. “It’s been a while.”

“Political intrigue, assassination plot, Corypheus taking advantage of the unrest. Orlais being Orlais,” Cassandra sighed again.

“Ah yes, the ball at Halamshiral.”

“Mmm.” Cassandra kicked out as she walked, sending a stray stone in the sand flying.

“Careful. Some of those go deeper than you think. You risk breaking a toe,” Elodie said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t get the impression that you’re very excited to go to the Winter Palace, Cassandra.”

“I am not. But I am even less excited for what Vivienne and Josephine have been plotting together in accordance with your return to Skyhold.”

“Plotting?”

“They… are concerned that someone raised in a culture outside of Orlesian high society might not quite grasp the subtle nuances of the Game.”

“Oh.” Elodie adjusted her cowl to better shield her eyes against the sun. “You mean they think I’ll embarrass them.”

“In a word, yes. I told them to leave you be. You seem to be familiar with most human customs, and the ball is not something that makes many people feel at ease. It is not because you are Dalish that you are not simpering over it, it is because you are smart.”

Elodie chuckled.

“But, in spite of my protests, they are planning to surprise you at Skyhold, and involve you for a while in ‘lessons’ after you return. They want time to prepare the nobility of Orlais for your feats, and time to prepare you for the nobility of Orlais.”

“They think I won’t accept? That they have to trap me?” Elodie scoffed, surprise forcing her eyes into narrow slits.

“Maybe they are judging based on my reactions alone,” Cassandra said under her breath. “But yes. In short, Josephine begged me not to tell you about her plans for your arrival, and forced me to promise not to breathe a word to you lest you 'stubbornly stay in the desert'."

"So you're breaking your word by telling me?" Elodie asked. "I'm flattered, Cass."

"About that... much as it pains me to use Varric-style semantics, I did promise her something. But I did not promise that I would not tell you about their plans."

"What did you promise?" Elodie demanded, a smile on the edge of her lips that belied her amusement.

"I merely agreed that I would relay only pertinent information to you. And nothing more." Cassandra blushed. "Therefore, this is pertinent information. In my opinion.”

“You do sound like Varric," Elodie laughed.

Cassandra made a disgusted noise and glanced away, glaring at the sand.

"I'm glad you told me," Elodie amended. Cassandra met her eyes again, her face a mask of relieved neutrality. "So. What does Leliana think of all this?”

“She actually disagrees with Josephine, and wants you to stay out here longer instead of wasting time on lessons before the ball. She wants to set up agents at the keep and solidify our hold in this wasteland before we attempt to act on the Grey Wardens’ treachery."

"And Cullen?"

Saying his name aloud for the first time in a few weeks was new to her. It felt good on her tongue. Elodie swallowed, glancing away as they strolled.

"Commander Cullen lent his opinion to the Erimond reports during a meeting of the advisors. Josephine ended it early when he threatened to ride into the Approach himself to 'deal with the issue' as he put it."

"I take it much more colorful language was used, then, if Josephine sent him away?"

"I would not know. I merely heard about it afterwards. However, he may have brought a practice dummy into his office. If we are to believe The Iron Bull's accounts, anyway."

"Ah." The thought of Cullen venting his frustrations on an inanimate object in his office seemed absurd, but very much in character for him. He wouldn't want recruits to see him enraged. Not without purpose.

"He seems to think Inquisition forces are the best way to handle this. He has them ready to go should you need them immediately.”

"And his thoughts on the ball?"

"He does not wish to think of it," Cassandra said simply. "He and I are of a similar opinion. He has been avoiding Vivienne's attempts to fit him for a suit jacket rather deftly."

“Mmm. This does give me some food for thought." _Cullen in formal attire._ "You’ve read the reports, I take it?” Elodie murmured, trying not to daydream.

“I have, after I met with your advisors. I am sorry to hear that the Wardens were led so far astray.”

“What are your thoughts on my suggestion to storm the fortress they mentioned to me?”

“It is risky, as are most of our undertakings. And I agree with Leliana, that we should maintain a presence and pool our resources before we push forward. But I trust that no matter your decision, we will make it right, as we always try to do,” Cassandra said, clapping the palm of her glimmering bloodstone gauntlet over Elodie’s shoulder. She smiled against the sun, and then her expression melted to one of giddy excitement before Elodie’s very eyes. “Oh! Elodie! I almost forgot!”

She stopped in her tracks and pulled an envelope from her pouch.

“This is for you.”

“From you?” Elodie asked, delighted.

“No! From your… suitor,” Cassandra finished lamely, giving a helpless shrug as a pink entirely unrelated to the sun touched her cheeks. She scoffed to hide her smile. “Just take the blighted letter so that you can tell me of its contents.”

“Cullen gave you this?”

“Shush,” Cassandra hushed her. “Normally I don’t ferret things around directly underneath of Leliana’s nose. But he said this was an exception he had to make for you. Something about your dreams.” She shoved the envelope at Elodie rather unceremoniously, her cheeks bright pink. “So be subtle about it.”

“O-okay then.”

Elodie grabbed for the letter, popping off its wax seal almost quickly enough to tear through the envelope. She and Cassandra climbed up to sit on a rock that overlooked the curve of the path they were on, so they would be able to tell if they were being approached from either side. Cassandra assumed a watchful position as Elodie unfolded the thick papers. There were three separate letters folded into the one envelope, and so she started with the one marked with the earliest date.

_Elodie,_

_I’ve hired a messenger to deliver these to you so that I don’t have to worry about anyone reading them this time. Not that I don’t trust our Nightingale, because I do. And the ravens are the quickest way for us to send word to one another. I just also would prefer that some of our private affairs remain just that- private. I know you said you divulged your dreams to Cassandra, and you also hinted that she approved of us, so I have asked her in confidence to deliver these letters to you once she sets out to reach you. I hope you don’t fault me for it._

Elodie looked up in gratitude at her friend.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked.

“He’s probably really happy you did this, you know.”

“He would not stop blushing when he asked me to,” Cassandra confessed, plainly amused. “That, paired with his glare, could both point to his being ‘happy’ I suppose.”

Elodie bit her lower lip to try to hold her smile in, and went back to reading.

_It feels good to write to you freely for once, knowing that only your fingers will open this envelope. I’ve been composing lists of good things to send to you as well, even if sometimes I forget to post them immediately after writing them. I’m sorry that they must not reach you with much regularity. The fact that I receive a letter from you every day with breakfast makes it feel almost as if you’re already back, or maybe like you never left. I appreciate that more than words can say._

_Most recently, I received a letter detailing things that you miss about Skyhold within it, and I had to reread it. I thought at first I had misread your handwriting, which admittedly is not improved when you write me before sunrise, but I was not mistaken. I was listed. I’m flattered you count me among the things that bring you happiness here._

_Something to make you laugh- I opened your last letter with an assistant nearby. She was helping me with organizing correspondence, and I did not expect your letter to be so… you. When I read through it, twice, I know my face must have shown a combination of intense pleasure and mystification because the girl asked me if I had a fever. Maker take me. I sent her away for the day, even though I had more work for her to do._

Elodie made a small, happy noise. She had been a bit nervous writing that out, had wondered how Cullen would receive it. She could imagine his face as he read it, even though she wished she didn’t have to. She was willing to bet that he had dragged a glove across his lips as he frowned and grew warmer and warmer. Did frowning normally stop his blushes? It would explain why he tended to do that so often in response to her teasing. She continued reading.

_At the risk of sounding too formal, I fear that this place always keeps me busier than I expect it to, and there are always plenty of duties left to attend to at the end of the day. That cuts into time I have to write to you. I write memos of things I wish to tell you about later, but then writing an actual letter seems to slip my mind in lieu of trying to tackle various other paperwork. I can never seem to make enough of a dent to afford the time.There are so many things that require your creative eye that I dare not act upon until you return, and just thinking about that pile of parchment makes me anxious. It reminds me of how invaluable you are. The way you approach people and their problems cannot be replaced in your absence. I have thrown myself into training regimens with the troops to try to keep my mind from it, and that has worked for a time._

_At the risk of sounding too_ _in_ _formal, on the other hand, I would relish the opportunity to show you just how much I have missed you. Just as soon as you arrive back at Skyhold. In person. Over chess, or some other such game of strategy, that I will not let you win (you'll regret implying that I did so the first time, Elodie). Preferably under the stars, as per your requests._

_You realize that I will honor everything you ask of me as best I can, don't you?  Everything you detailed in your last list to me sounds like a comfort. Even if it means I'm left dusting your clothes free of grassblades when you finish pretending you're a mabari. Adorable, as far as images go, but make sure to do it away from the eyes of our First Enchanter. She has been on an 'image' kick lately, and wishes to take my measurements anew. I told her that Dagna knew my armor measurements, and should I need fitting for anything, it would be a new plate._

_Madame de Fer was not amused._

_On that note, I have been making lists of another, rather personal nature at your behest- but have no courage yet to send them. You can look forward to receiving them in person. I_ _will look forward to watching you read them in front of me. Revenge will be sweet, my dear Inquisitor. And unlike the reaction I had in regards to my assistant, I pray you do not send me away if you find yourself blushing._

_Yours,_

_Cullen_

Elodie sat there for a moment, in complete shock, and then she reread the letter in its entirety. She could hardly believe this was the same man who, in his last few missives, had focused on ways she needed to take care of herself and then launched into the history of the Western Approach. This was the same man who had given her a strikingly detailed rendition of how many of each mount were still housed at Skyhold in her absence. A thought made her shiver.

Was Cullen always this open, when he knew they were being given their privacy?

She reread the last sentence, the promise it held there, and could feel her stomach slide pleasantly in response. She reread the way he had signed his name. _Mine._ He had admitted it, insofar as a signature would permit him to. He'd called himself hers. She curled her toes in her boots, reread it again to send the sparks anew down the length of her spine to her hips. Guiltily, she tried to imagine how Cullen was going to show her his feelings in person. Would he pick up where they left off with their goodbye kiss? Would he move his hands beneath her clothes again, or would he allow Elodie to explore _him_?

Cassandra shifted in the sand next to her and Elodie remembered herself. There were two more letters to get through.

Elodie set that first one aside face down as she avoided Cassandra’s curious glances, and then started on the second one. She had to force herself to read slowly, because she wanted to speed through and see if he left her with yet another promise of things to come when she returned. Drawing in a deep breath, she forced herself to take her time.

_Elodie,_

_I didn’t address a few of your concerns in the last letter, and for that I apologize. I was so eager to write about my feelings that I did not acknowledge yours. Forgive me, that was rude._

Elodie covered her smile with a gloved hand. Maker, the man was endearing. She wondered how quickly he had drafted her this second letter after spilling out the first. It was dated one day later, but she wouldn’t put it past Cullen to have made a first draft a few hours after. She skimmed the first part again, then continued.

_On the matter of the dreams, I’m very pleased that Dorian has accompanied you as far as the Abyssal Reach, and that he insisted on staying by your side when Hawke returned with Varric and The Iron Bull. They have confirmed that the Approach is a dull wasteland, not that I didn’t believe you before. Although Varric said you had found some tunnels that proved interesting? I can't tell if he was being sarcastic with me. I have a feeling that he was. Regardless, I’m grateful both for Dorian’s magic nightlights and for his ease of company at your side. Challenge him to a game of chess for me, will you? See if he can’t win back his honor against you._

_Be careful. He cheats._

_I hope it goes without saying, but if you were ever interested in discussing the subject of such dreams, please feel free to divulge them to me. I know you said you were getting advice on them before. I may not know as much on the subject as some Elven friends of ours, but I offer my ear nonetheless._

Elodie paused, narrowing her eyes. He didn’t want to write Solas’ name, even though nobody would be reading this but her? Curious.

_You have always been so forthright with me, on the subject of dreams or your feelings, and I feel that I owe you the same. When you return, I think a long conversation between us is in order. Honestly, many of our talks end up becoming long conversations regardless of the subject, don't they? But this, I fear, is not as pleasant in nature as our usual talks have been. I am nervous to include even this small hint of it within the letter, because I don’t want to worry you unnecessarily. I wish I had spoken of it aloud when I’d been given the chance, when you had still been within walking distance of my office._

_Again. I don’t wish to alarm you. Had it been an emergency, I would have spoken of it sooner or would speak of it now. As it stands, it is merely something I’m uncomfortable with and we shall leave it there for now until I can speak with you in person._

Elodie frowned. She could feel Cullen becoming defensive and withdrawn even in letter form, even though she wasn’t there to pry. It must be something he really did not enjoy speaking of, then. She tried to quell the flutter of nerves the paragraph above sent through her, poorly distracting herself by looking to the next one.

_It doesn’t feel like you’ve been gone over a month already, longer by the time this reaches you. I hope you return to Skyhold quickly and safely, and that you can stay within its walls for longer than a week before you head out once more. I wish for this mainly so that you can recuperate at your leisure. I know you are always anxious to head back out into the fray of things, which I commend, but you also deserve to rest._

Elodie resisted an eyeroll at this. Her eyes were not the ones that drooped heavily with fatigue when she called war meetings in the pre-dawn hours. She had never been caught napping briefly at her desk. Not taking into account her nightmares, Elodie slept rather well. She flicked the letter free of a spot of sand the wind had brushed across it, then read on.

 _One last thing: I don’t wear perfume. So no, I don’t perfume my letters to you. I have to admit, that made me laugh. What you’re probably smelling on them is a combination of the oil I use to keep my armor plates from rusting, soaps that I’ve washed with, and a special wax I rub into my leathers to keep them from growing too stiff. I_ _suppose those would all combine together to make a distinct aroma, but I’ve been around it for so long that I cannot say for certain if this is what you are smelling. Out of curiosity, is it a good thing that my letters to you smell like me? I can’t decide if it is or not. If you dislike it, tell me, and I’ll see if I can’t prevent it._

_Your last letter to me had sand in it. I thought it was on purpose at first, to reference my supposed perfuming, but now I don’t think it was. You are going to return absolutely covered in the stuff, aren’t you?_

_Yours,_

_Cullen_

“It’s good to see you smiling,” Cassandra murmured. “When he handed me these letters, I have to admit, part of me was worried it was bad news.”

“No,” Elodie smiled fondly down at the first two she’d read. She deliberately omitted that the bad news seemed to await her return at Skyhold. “Not so far, anyway. Here, smell this.”

“What.”

“Just do it,” Elodie waved the paper in front of Cassandra’s face and she took a tiny sniff.

“Oh.” Cassandra blinked, her eyes widening. “He… perfumed them?”

“Smells like Cullen, doesn't it?”

"I do not smell him, for the most part," Cassandra said with a little curl of her lip. Elodie laughed aloud, and Cassandra added, "But when he and I have sparred before, I have caught a whiff of something floral. I assumed it was from the gardens."

Good, she wasn’t the only one to think it was so distinct of a smell. And it was definitely a good thing. The scent was slightly sweet, a bit dark, musky, and very distinct. She had to resist bringing the letter back to her nose to get a better whiff. Not in front of Cassandra, she told herself, although the Seeker looked as if she wanted to do the same.

“Maker, how romantic of him,” Cassandra whispered.

“There, that should tide you over while I read the last one,” Elodie chuckled, and Cassandra lightly whacked her with the back of her palm.

Elodie unfolded the third and final letter, and when a little flower fell out of it she almost dropped it into the sand. Cassandra gasped faintly behind her and Elodie tried her best not to smush the already-pressed bluebell. Odd choice of flower for him to send her, but romantic nonetheless.

_Elodie,_

_Cassandra leaves in about two hours to start her journey to you. Maker be with her and the rest of your party as they travel to reach you. Until then, I look forward to your daily reports and (_ _once Cassandra arrives) I eagerly_ _await your response to my two previous letters. Hopefully I did not offend you with any of my admissions. It is too late to take them back now, nor would I wish to if it weren’t._

Elodie vowed to show him in person just how little he had offended her. The thought made her feel too warm, her ears too tingly.

_I have the time to draft you one final, honest letter. I’m also going to include a flower that a little one insisted I send to you. I am still a bit dubious on how she knew to give it to me, of all people, but I have some ideas. Tell me if you come to the same conclusion as I did. It is a rather cute story._

_Just yesterday, I was in the courtyard with Blackwall and Bull. We were leading a sparring circle between the Templars, the Chargers, and some new recruits. Baelam’s daughters were playing in the hay while their father bartered with a visiting Orlesian merchant, but the youngest was totally fixated on the glint of the shields. She came up to me when I told the troops to break for water._

_She gave me the flower and said, “For the Inquisitor.”_

_Naturally I told her I would give it to you. I took the flower and pressed it by setting a spare shield upon it in the sunshine so that it might make it to you intact. Hopefully it’s a reminder of the garden that you talked about awaiting you back at Skyhold, and of how greatly you are missed by its occupants._

She set the final letter down with shaky hands. It was a lot to absorb, but the flower in her hand felt like the only thing Elodie could focus on.

The dream she’d had about Baelam’s daughters was fading from her memory already, but she remembered Kannara’s gesture. A finger to her lips. Their little secret. She could barely register the sweetness at the end of the letter, the little reference to a patch of stars he was looking at as he thought of her, because of her preoccupation on that image. A finger to her lips.

Cullen could not have known. Elodie had to remind herself that Cullen had no idea about the bad dream, about Kannara, about the pile of corpses. She had the most insane urge, however, to write him and warn him to stay away from the child. The ridiculousness of the instinct washed over her, leaving Elodie feeling nauseous in its wake.

“Elodie?” Cassandra held out a hand, ready to grab onto Elodie’s arm. “Are you alright? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” Elodie frowned, struggling to keep her hands from betraying her unease. She tried her best to keep them still, but they trembled without her permission as she gripped the letters tight.

“Please tell me you are not about to faint, overcome by the passion contained in your love letters,” Cassandra warned her.

Elodie tried to laugh, but could barely crack a smile.

“I just… feel like I’m too warm. This heat. This armor,” Elodie shook her head. “Not going to faint. Probably.”

“Here, let me help you back to camp.”

“I’ll go back in a minute, and it’ll be fine,” Elodie mumbled. “Not yet, though. I haven't finished reading.”

“You can read at camp, too, you know.” The Seeker positioned herself closer to Elodie, with one hand at the small of her back to support her. Realization dawned on Cassandra's face, the idea that the letter might have been bad news probably only just now occurring to her. “Is everything okay with… everyone at Skyhold?” she asked.

“Yes,” Elodie nodded, and forced a small smile. “Everything’s fine.”

Cassandra didn’t believe her, Elodie could tell, but mercifully she let the matter drop. Elodie turned back down to the letter, hoping that Cullen switched subjects soon. She skimmed until she found the place she'd left off, then resumed her reading as her pulse regained its natural rhythm.

_Personally, I see this as a blessing from our Nightingale. I’m sure she knows I’m sending you these little notes in secret; otherwise, I cannot imagine how Baelam's youngest would know that I could get a present to you. Maybe she has seen us walking together, or maybe her father mentioned something, but I doubt it. During Chantry services out in the garden, I see Leliana at the back with Minaeve. More than once, Baelam's girls have played about her skirts, showing our Nightingale their stuffed nug dolls or the carvings Blackwall has made for them._

_Maker take me but I don't know how she can be so popular with children, and yet so chilling when we speak of our strategy in regards to the Wardens._

_However, out of respect for Leliana ,I will stop my smuggling after this final letter and resume speaking to you through our normal channels. But I wanted you to know, you are on our minds back here at Skyhold. My mind most of all._

There. That was what she needed to hear. Elodie breathed in deeply, a long sigh, and thought of burying her face in Cullen's fur mantle. It helped, even with the sweltering heat about her. She carried on, halfway through the letter.

_And while I still have the means to do so, I must confess that I recently found a constellation that reminded me of you. Yes, this also means that I have found a place for us to look at the stars again. If you prefer the garden, we will take walks there instead, but I think you'll prefer this new location. I know I do._

_The constellation is called the Oak, and its branches remind me of the marks on your cheeks. I hope that’s not rude of me to say. The comparison is meant to be a flattering one. When I saw the full constellation, its lines traced out on paper tucked inside a book on astrariums, it caught my attention. I could not help but think of you as I glanced it over (I will also lend you the book should you wish to read through it upon your return, so you can see what I mean)._

_Can you see the Oak from where you’re camped? The Western Approach is supposed to allow for some beautiful views of the stars, and I have heard it even affords secret glimpses of aurora in vibrant colors if the weather is clear. To be able to see it with you would be quite interesting, I think._

_I will finish my letter to you with a small list of my own. As happy repayment._

_Here are some things that I have noticed about Skyhold that remind me of you:_

_\- The waffles Josephine reordered, once she heard you were craving some. I had neglected to save you one, and did not hear the end of it for a week from our diplomat. Josephine has tried to time the next delivery with your impending return. We'll have to see who arrives at Skyhold first, you or the dessert._

_\- The Ferelden decor. Recently, we have erected large wolf carvings and received new cherrywood tables for the great hall. However, I can't much take advantage of it. Our dear Madame de Fer has been eyeing me when I walk through. Makes me feel as if she is preparing for me to become one of the statues lining the tables._

_\- The votive candles lit at the chapel past the garden, by a statue of Andraste. I walked past the other morning, on my way back from filing reports with Josephine, and heard Sisters praying for your safe return. I joined them. It was peaceful, and I plan on lighting more for your safe journey home._

_\- The stories The Iron Bull tells everyone over drinks after dinner. Do you remember how, back in Haven, you told me you'd tried honey whiskey? And then you tripped, and I could barely keep from kissing you as you looked up at me in the moonlight? Well, I tried the drink myself the other night, and you're right. It's very warm, and very good. I'll share a round with you when you return. In the meantime, spending a few moments in the evening with other members of the Inquisition is a soothing pastime. Plus, otherwise, I never would have heard about how you took down an entire group of darkspawn on the Storm Coast by opening up a rift of your own making. What else are you not including in your reports, Inquisitor?_

_\- Redcurrant jam. I was never really fond of it, but I found myself craving it after I read your last letter to me, and for some reason our kitchen has it in droves. My favorite jam, if we are sharing favorites, is actually blackberry. If I can complete the approval of two new maps with lookout tower locations by nightfall, I plan on asking the cook to add it to our trades list._

_\- The Boranehn clan. We had the pleasure of welcoming a Dalish clan to Skyhold the other day. I think Boranehn is the spelling? They did not stay long, but there were several young men and women among them that wished to help the Inquisition. While I went out to greet them as a member of your council, I soon found myself in the position of babysitter. I didn't mind. The children were very good with their slings. Leliana spoke with the men and women who volunteered about becoming agents, and as a gesture of goodwill their Keeper gave me something called June's Knot. It's resting on my desk. I've yet to solve it, but I find myself playing with the thing after meals. It's good craftsmanship._

_\- The music that floats out from the sleeping quarters at night. I remember when you joked about dancing, before Haven fell. The music is faint, a viola or two, but whoever is playing it really knows their instruments. I wish you could hear it._

_I am not as creative as you are, and Cassandra leaves in a moment, so I can't think of anything else to say. I must end this here, but I hope it is enough._ _Come back safely, and soon._

_Yours,_

_Cullen_

Elodie set the letter down once more on her thigh. It was perfect. With a long sigh, she allowed Cassandra to help her to her feet.

"I miss him," she said softly, maybe more to herself than anything. Cassandra's hand tightened at her lower back, drawing Elodie into an easy, one-armed hug. Shocked, Elodie leaned into it and raised her left arm to Cassandra's back as well.

"You will return soon," Cassandra said. "Even sooner once we secure that keep."

"Right," Elodie agreed, her sense of purpose and focus renewed. Cassandra gave her one final, good-natured shake, and then released Elodie as they approached the camp. Sera was sitting by the fire, raking her palm across her tongue with a look of absolute disgust on her face. Upon seeing Elodie and Cassandra walk up, she got to her feet and pointed accusingly at Dorian.

"That shit he calls a cream," Sera spat by way of explanation, "is definitely not for eating."

Dorian merely shrugged as Elodie held her side, her laughter ringing out through the valley.  And for a moment, the pressed blue flower in her palm and the serious conversation awaiting her return were thankfully the last things on her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How long do you think it took Cullen to muster up the courage to write so honestly? In my mind, he almost didn't even send them with Cassandra. Hence the glare ;) Luckily our Seeker knows him by now, and isn't phased.
> 
> If you aren't sure what June's Knot is, or why it made Elodie laugh to read that in Cullen's letter, you'll be happy you looked it up. I don't think the Keeper did it with any slight in mind, maybe a joke that our Commander took a bit too literally.


	22. Homeward

More Venatori. Elodie could have gone much longer without having to deal with Venatori, seeing as she had just tracked down several of their scouting groups the day prior. She could have gone forever, in fact. But here she was, putting them down like rabid dogs, their screams echoing in her skull as they crumbled. At night, Elodie stayed awake as long as she could, speaking with Cassandra about battle scars versus hunting scars.

Originally, seeing as they had Sera as their archer, Elodie had tried to go into battle quick and stealthy, with twin daggers beside Cassandra's shielded guard. But then she'd remembered her dream, remembered Templars caked in bloodied snow, and the volley of arrows coming from behind Elodie set off pinging alarm bells of anxiety in her brain that she couldn't ignore long enough to fight past. She had switched over to using her bow once more, combining her efforts with Sera from behind enemy lines as Cassandra blew through with her shield to clear a path for Dorian’s flames. When she was in control of the arrows, it was easier to ignore the sounds they made as they lodged deep in the flesh of men. Far enough away, Elodie could focus on the steady rhythm of notch and release.

At the end of the ten days it took to clear out the keep of its inhabitants, Elodie developed a soreness in her shoulders that reminded her of when she first took on the moniker of Herald. Hadn't she felt this way back in Therinfal? Had it really been so long ago? Stress manifested itself in knots at her shoulder blades, she was sure it would take ages to pull them free by herself. She wrote letters back to Josephine, asking her diplomat to find a masseuse that Elodie had joked about. Elodie clarified that she was not joking now. She needed relief, one that her potions and poultices weren't providing.

She wrote back to Cullen twice, sending runners back to camp with her messages to carry to him by raven. They were short letters, not the replies he deserved but the only ones that she could muster up. She asked him to save her a spot to look up at the Oak with him. She told him that his openness and his friendship were keeping her from growing discouraged, and otherwise assured him that what he had written to her was exactly what she'd wanted. She refrained from telling him that she slept with his letters by her side at night, closeby should she need to be reminded of sweetness upon waking from a nightmare. But just barely.

Then resources had thinned and even the runners were necessary for the final push into Griffon Wing Keep. Elodie's correspondence dropped off from everyone, and she had no time to focus on the way Cullen's words blossomed heat into the center of her being when she reread them. She could only focus on finishing the task at hand. Mercifully, her nights were long, the fighting drawn out past the point of fatigue, and her sleep (when she could find it) was too deep for her to remember her dreams when she awoke.

After ten days, they were finally finished.

Elodie took one full day to rest, sleeping in until almost lunchtime and sharing a lazy midday meal with Sera and Dorian. Cassandra was with Rylen, having taken over for Elodie in her time of fatigue. It was a blessing. Cassandra's well of energy was just what Elodie needed to keep her chin up. She knew that she had work ahead of her when she got back to Skyhold, and she could only hope that she could do it in uninterrupted comfort once she returned, without threats of classes on etiquette or dancing.

Knight-Captain Rylen was to be stationed at Griffon Wing Keep now that it had been freed of its previous occupants, but the area surrounding it was still rife with dangerous animals, raiders, and a sulfurous gas that choked any who might step through it. It would require sending agents from Skyhold to repair, once Elodie could get back and discuss with her advisors how best to combat the poisonous air and infected waters.

On her way back to a camp on the edge of the Approach, Elodie was also made aware that the work in the desert was not yet finished. There were still smaller rifts and other issues that she would need to venture out to take care of once she resupplied, that much was clear. Elodie stayed up late at night, yearning for a day where she didn’t calculate distance, food, water, and energy in a neverending mathematics equation that left her feeling like less than zero.

On top of that, she knew she would have to spend time back at Skyhold gearing up to assault Adamant fortress as soon as she returned. The letters she received from Varric detailed how Hawke had gathered the war council together to discuss Elodie’s reports, and the letters she received from Leliana painted the same picture but with less colorful language.

Turns out that Hawke had pleaded his case well, and then Josephine had softened and sculpted it to supply to the local dignitaries, and most were of the opinion that the Inquisition was to send forces to help. In reality, they would send forces to end the control Corypheus held over the Grey Wardens by any means necessary. All it would take was for Elodie to go home.

Home.

That’s what it felt like now, the thought of Skyhold. Elodie vaguely wondered if it was wise to call anyplace home after what happened at Haven, but she couldn’t help it.

She wanted to go home.

* * *

“Are you ready to head back?” Sera asked, watching Elodie trying to stretch out her shoulders by the fire.

Elodie glanced up at her, then cracked her neck with a quick twitch.

“Mmm. Yes and no."

“You say that, but you look like you're hurting." Sera paused, but Elodie didn't refute or deny it. The city elf sighed. "It'll definitely do you some good to be back in a bed again.”

“I’m Dalish, Sera,” Elodie said, resisting the urge to snap. “There were no beds for most of my life.”

“That doesn’t mean hogsplat. A pile of cushions at the very least, that’s preferrable to this hard ground,” Sera mumbled. “Especially if you’ve got someone to share it with.”

“If you’re inviting me to snuggle you again, I’m going to have to pass,” Elodie sidestepped. “You’re a kicker.”

“Am not,” Sera protested. “But I wasn’t talking about me and you know it.”

“I know it,” Elodie sighed once more.

“He did that same thing when I asked him about you, you know,” Sera snickered.

Elodie couldn’t glance up fast enough.

“You. Talked to Cullen. About me.”

“Yeah, and he did that same little sigh, all winsome and,” instead of supplying another adjective, Sera folded her hands under her chin and batted her eyelashes hard. Elodie laughed, shoving at the elf’s knee. Sera snorted, and continued, “Then he got all jumpy and asked if I was plotting something. It's great whenever his nose goes all scrunchy, makes him look like them werewolf legends.”

“He did not.”

“He definitely did,” Sera said, snarling to demonstrate Cullen's facial expression.

“You know what I mean,” Elodie answered, pressing her lips together in determined stubbornness. “He didn’t sigh when you asked about me, that doesn't seem like him.”

“Swear on Adraste’s arse he did,” she said with a frown, seemingly scandalized. “He tried to look all serious about me and Cassandra going out to meet you, but I could tell he was holding back worries. He seemed like he wanted to come too. And when I mentioned your name, his eyebrow twitched, he sighed, and then he did the wolfy face.”

Sera proceeded to demonstrate once more, but Elodie didn't reward her with the laughter she was seeking.

“I’ll bet he did want to come, now that you mention it,” Elodie said, shaking her head. She wouldn’t wish this place on Cullen. She wouldn’t wish this place on anyone.

The fire crackled between the two women. Far behind them, Cassandra could be heard asking the requisition officers about supply lines. Beyond that, the slight scrape of utensils echoed off of light tin plates as the troops in circled tents nearby finished their dinner. Elodie glanced up at Sera, taking in how her whole body seemed crossed off. Normally open and relaxed, Sera had her legs crossed, her torso turned, and her arms crossed. She was a picture of tension, and Elodie had not allowed her to diffuse it.

“You’re right, you know, Sera," Elodie said. "Cushions would help things.”

"I know I am," she replied, but there was gentleness in her voice. "Even the Dalish can't refuse a fucking cushion."

Elodie gave her a snort, which seemed to mollify her completely.

“Not even just one cushion, but a pile of them, in one place and one place only for a change,” Sera added.

“Yeah, exactly.” Elodie snapped a bit of kindling in her hands, breaking it into smaller and smaller bits as she spoke. “I only just got to see Skyhold for a minute after Crestwood before it felt like I was leaving it again."

"Always moving," Sera muttered.

"I know. And part of me feels like... like it shouldn’t bother me," Elodie bit out. "Our aravel moved regularly from place to place, and even though I missed the woods when we left the Planasene, it was still always home. But then lately, something's changed. I've felt so empty the last two times I left. Skyhold isn't even a place I know well enough to miss yet, though, so it doesn't make any sense.”

She tossed a handful of the kindling nubs into the fire, making it flare briefly, and picked up another stick to work her frustrations out on.

“Ignore me,” she mumbled, but the elf across from her looked content to do anything but.

“You know it’s not the place, right?” Sera sucked a tooth. “Gardens, beds, circles, alienages, fish markets, whorehouses- boil everything down past that, why should you care where you go?”

The air was quiet as the fire crackled between them.

“I shouldn’t care," Elodie said.

“But you do.”

“Yes,” Elodie blinked back a sting in the corner of her eye, most likely from the smoke.

“Right. So then why do you?”

Elodie paused, thinking of Solas, wondering if his mural was finished. She thought of Blackwall carving toys, of Cole crushing mint in a corner, of Krem standing just a bit taller as Maryden sang about Orlais. Elodie thought of Leliana praying on bended knee at the altar in the crook of her tower. She thought of Vivienne poring through tomes on experimental potions, the dainty way she turned pages as if each one were precious leafed gold. Elodie thought of Cullen standing over his desk, both hands pressed flat to the sturdy wood, his eyes alight with strategy as the puzzle pieces of a battlefield aligned in his mind.

A sudden image of Cullen asleep, misty and vague, came unbidden to her mind’s eye. She had never seen his quarters, never seen what kind of bed he slept in, but she imagined that Cullen was practical and had sheets and quilts that he layered painstakingly each morning before he ate breakfast. In the vision, he was warm, languid, and sprawled out in deep sleep. His chest rose and fell with even breaths, one of his arms thrown up high over his head and one curled underneath of the pillows beside him.

A pile of cushions, in one place and one place only.

“It’s home,” Elodie said blankly, looking up to meet Sera’s gaze once more.

“No."

Elodie frowned, could feel a laugh bubbling up in surprise at the back of her throat, but Sera cut her off before she could let it loose.

"Well,” Sera wrinkled her nose. “Maybe it is home to you, but that’s not the answer to my question."

"So tell me, then," Elodie said. "What's the answer? Why do I care?"

"You care because the place doesn’t matter, Ellie. It’s the people _in_ the place that make it worth something. I could tell even before you raised that people banner at Therinfal that you and I were similar in that respect.”

“How would you know?” Elodie teased, flicking a twig at the elf across the flames.

“Oh please,” Sera kicked a dustcloud of sand over with her foot. “Our first mission together, you ran around your arse to get to your elbow in order to find someone’s mum a healing potion that the pissbiscuit son could’ve just delivered himself. Then,” she counted off on her fingers. “You killed some goats for some hunter-”

“Rams.”

“-dragons, who cares?” Sera smirked. “And you gave the meat to starving people. You found cold people blankets, even though it took bloody days and had my back aching from that one trek up the cliffside. That whole time, you handmade little shinies to give to those you love.” The elf got quiet, fidgeting slightly with her cuticles as her expression darkened. “You still wear the bracelets I made you. You save sugarcubes when you think nobody will see, and give them to the mounts when they’re being watered. You cook with us. You laugh with us. You check on us after rifts, patting our shoulders to make sure we can stand.”

“Sera…”

“Ugh. Gives me a headache.” Sera took a branch of her own and snapped it repeatedly in her hands until the nubs were too small to break. She looked up at Elodie. “You do a lot, basically, but it’s all about the people. There.”

With finality, Sera threw her kindling into the fire, and tongue-like flames lapped up the little wood bits as the two of them watched. They sat, watching the flames lick lower and lower as the fire settled into itself, and Elodie was the first to break their silence with a dire question that had been bothering her for months.

“Will the same thing that happened at Haven happen at Skyhold, do you think?”

“No,” Sera shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t like thinkin’ about it, it’s why I jump at the chance to just come with.”

“Even though we’re never in one place with our pile of cushions?”

“That’ll happen sometimes, when you’re up against someone who punches down,” Sera said, digging a bit of jerky out from behind her canine. She glanced at her nail, then sucked it clean of the meat and turned back to Elodie. “You end up having to do a lot of dancing in order to stay ahead when someone big has their sights set on you. Ain’t no room for carting cushions then.”

“Maybe so,” Elodie answered, pulling her curls back away from her face as she stared into the fire. “I kind of prefer this dancing to the thought of dancing at an Orlesian ball, though.”

“Josie’s plotting,” Sera snickered.

“The lot of them are. I’d rather stay out here, even with Erimond and the Venatori lurking in every sand dune.”

“Why’s that?”

“Easy,” Elodie mumbled. “Missteps out here will get you bruised, banged up, cut, poisoned. But missteps at the Winter Palace-”

“Will land you in the exact same place,” Sera said, one eyebrow quirked sharply. Her tone cut off the rest of Elodie’s sentence, and when she seemed sure the Inquisitor was paying attention she quietly continued. “Do not underestimate what those kinds of people can do in the shadows. What _my_ kinds of people can do in the shadows to _those_ kinds of people. That’s a good way to get yourself killed, especially since you’re no minnow. People would pay good money to see your fins clipped.”

“I think you’re mixing up birds and fish in this analogy.”

“I know what I said,” Sera muttered, pointing a finger at Elodie before raising her voice slightly. “Fish, bird, or fucking dragon, you’d do best to remember that nobody in that poncy place can be trusted as far as you can stick an arrow in ‘em.”

As if she’d proven her point, the elf went back to picking at her teeth.

“I…” Elodie paused, thinking back to talks she’d had with Vivienne on the road about bards and their true motives besides singing and courtly entertainment. She swallowed her protests. “Yeah. You’re right. I keep forgetting.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let you forget at the Palace,” Sera promised, and Elodie tossed more kindling bits into the embers with a smirk.

“Sounds like I’m going to be taking you to court, eh?”

“You’d have a hard time stopping me from following you.” Sera flicked whatever the second thing was that she’d pulled from her teeth into the fire, and then pursed her lips in thought. Her expression darkened further. “You didn’t take me with you this last time, didn’t even say goodbye. I woke up and you were just gone. Months of no Elodie before me.”

Sera’s tone was barely accusatory, barely petulant. It sounded as if she still scarcely believed Elodie had snuck off like she had. Elodie swallowed hard. Guilt was a prickly itch beneath her skin, and she crossed her arms over her chest to try to stop it from spreading.

“I’m sorry, Sera,” she whispered.

And Elodie was. She had never had to apologize to Sera before, not even when she’d chewed the city elf out in front of some Chantry Sisters back in Haven. The words felt foreign in her mouth, all at once too little and too much. Sera, to her credit, didn’t draw out the torture.

“Good. You should be. And don’t you ever do that again.”

“I won’t,” Elodie promised.

The reminder hit her hard. She’d thought she would be making it easier on everyone, just slipping away as she had. But on the flip side, if Sera had done the same to her, she would have been worried sick. No wonder the city elf had tackled her at first; it was part hug, part punishment.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” Sera grumbled, looking up at the stars as she wiped her fingers on the edge of her tunic. Elodie grimaced, then tried to brighten the mood how she could.

“I’ve thought up a name for my hart. This way you can maybe make her some sort of personalized collar. Or something.”

“Hmph. It better be good, if you didn’t let me do the naming.”

“Her name is Adahl.”

“Oh poo, you chose an elfy name?” Sera curled her lip. “Disappointed.”

“It’s pretty! Adahl means _tree_ ,” Elodie said, flicking a tiny pebble Sera’s way. “Or _bush_ , depending on the translation.”

The elf snapped to attention.

“Does it now!”

“Not like th-”

“Naughty, naughty Ellie! Didn’t know you had it in you!”

“Sera-”

“Oh hush, it’s a beautiful, perfectly non-downstairs-referencing name. May as well have named her Lady Hoofybits, though. Would’ve been less pretentious,” Sera quipped, and before Elodie could even finish her eyeroll Sera was standing and walking over to where the Swiftwind was eating its dinner of oats. “I’m gonna nickname you Doll. Because look at those eyelashes, yes,” Sera cooed, stroking the beast down its nose.

It snuffled happily in response, flicking its ears back and forth as if responding to the praise. Either that or it was very happy to have gotten fresh oats during the resupply.

“Close enough, I guess,” Elodie groaned as she stood, the lockpicks at her waist clicking together as she swiveled. “Come help me pack now. We’ll leave for Skyhold at dawn.”

* * *

"Inquisitor!"

The call rang out over camp as Elodie swung her leg over Adahl's saddle. She turned the hart, motioning for the rest of her party to trot on ahead of her. Scout Harding raced up, breathing hard.

"What is it?"

"Message for you. Just arrived, didn't want you to leave without it." Harding held the envelope aloft. As Elodie leaned down to take it from the dwarf, the entire side of her ribs that had broken when she fell below the snow in Haven gave a resounding creak inside of her. Elodie froze, panic streaking through her. The injury was a healed one, but still acted up when she pushed herself too far. Much like her hand, it was an ache she could endure and ignore, one that had become a part of her. She held her breath, desperate not to let the pain show, but Harding seemed to notice the twitch in her brow anyway.

"Thank you, Scout Harding," Elodie managed to bite out in as kind a tone as she could muster.

"Inquisitor are y-"

"I'll see you back at Skyhold in a little while," Elodie said, righting herself and praying that there was an embrium tincture somewhere in her pack. "Behave yourself while I'm gone."

"You know I always do," Harding answered, grinning up at Elodie. Even through her smile, Harding couldn't seem to hide the concern from reaching her eyes, and Elodie gently dug her heel into Adahl's side to get her to move on.

The sky was still a dormant wash of tranquil indigo and purple, speckles of stars barely visible as dawn inched its way slowly in gray along the horizon. The world was cast in pale blue, a chill still on the air from the lack of sunlight. It would get warmer quickly, but for now, this was the ideal time to travel. While her hart moved up to join the rest of the party traveling back to Skyhold, Elodie took a moment to inhale deeply and recenter herself. She was going home.

The ache in her ribs relaxed as she rode, steadying itself as Elodie regained her posture and rested low in her hips. She could breathe easily. Because of this, she decided to open the letter before Adahl caught up with the other mounts. The envelope was sealed with a brown wax, the symbol of what looked to be a feather half-melted from the heat of its journey the previous day. Popping the seal off, Elodie noticed it was barely a page long, and written in loose, effortless script.

_Inquisitor,_

_I take it that the plan of attack on Griffon Wing Keep is underway. I overheard Ruffles discussing your lack of letters, so that makes a lot of sense. Too busy kicking ass and taking names to wax poetic, right?_

_Not to distract you or anything, but I hope this reaches you before you head back to Skyhold. This letter is a heads up._

_First and foremost, Lady Montilyet and Madame de Fer are planning something upon your arrival. They seem to think they're sneaky, but we're all certain it relates to the Empress, no doubt. I've noticed them tracking down almost everyone they can get their hands on with measuring tapes and a seamstress that only speaks Orlesian, which is fun. There's talk of your return, of preparations for Halamshiral. I know how frustrating it can be to want to get a good night's sleep and be accosted with pins in your lapel and talk of girdles. It's not even just Ruffles, I'm positive I heard her and Nightingale laughing over tea about the dresses they were hoping to see in season this year. Something about a memory of live birds? Is this what makes nightmares so scary? Threats of Orlesian high society with live animals tangled in their tresses and shitting on their shirt?_

Elodie laughed out loud at the imagery. It tugged at something within her, not just because of how plainly she could hear Varric's rumble of a laugh even through paper, but because of the idea of having tea with her two female advisors. Would they invite her to join them sometime? She hoped so. Elodie blinked at a bit of sand that caught in her eyelash as a breeze fluttered past, and continued reading.

_Sidenote. I have to share this with someone, so consider yourself very lucky._

_I thought that after seeing the shit we had to deal with in Kirkwall that Hawke was incapable of surprising me anymore. Surprise! I was wrong! Prepare yourself:_ _Hawke has actively been seeking out Curly and challenging him to chess games, and it's regular enough now that I actually see a tray of tea being set out by one of the Chantry Sisters before they have a match. The first few times, Hawke took his staff with him, I assume to send a message. But now lately, he's left it resting against the chair beside me while he goes off into the garden for a few hours of strategy with the illustrious Commander._

_I don't know what to make of it, but maybe you do. These two have a bit of a Kirkwall history, as I'm sure you've heard. I guess I thought they'd still be sore at each other for a variety of reasons. I wrote to Merrill, but I haven't heard back from her yet, probably because she doesn't believe it either or she's too busy giggling to hold a pen steady. Figured I would try talking about it with you, since you might be the only other person besides the Seeker who can understand my shock._

_Or... Curly hasn't told you about any of this yet and I've just opened up a new can of worms. Still, that's a chance I'm willing to take! I want it on record that Hawke has refused to tell me who wins, which almost certainly means that Cullen is besting him every time. Use that information how you will._

_Either way, it should be fun to chat with you about this over something boozy when you return!_

_Safe travels, Elodie._

_~Varric Tethras~_

Elodie smiled, holding the letter in her hand, and barely pulled it back out of reach when Sera's hand flew out to try to snatch it. Her hart had caught up to the rest of the party and was keeping pace between Dorian and Sera, and the blue-gray of the approaching dawn cast eerie shadows from the dunes and cliffs on either side of them. Elodie smirked.

"You're losing your touch, pickpocket."

"Hmmph. What's that anyway?" Sera asked. "Must be valuable if you don't want me to see it."

"It's nothing, actually. Just a letter from Varric."

Cassandra glanced behind her, turning on her horse to get a better view, and Elodie pretended not to notice.

"What did he write about?" the warrior asked.

"Nothing much," Elodie evaded. It wasn't untrue, exactly, but she added, "Just updating me on how things are with Hawke."

The evasion felt a bit thick on her tongue, unnatural, but it seemed to satisfy Cassandra. It wasn't a necessary note, save for the fact that Varric was concerned about Elodie's homecoming much in the same way Cassandra had been. Cassandra had most likely not reassured the dwarf that she was going to divulge the Halamshiral shenanigans to Elodie, so he'd taken it upon himself to warn her. The fact that so many of her companions were in a tizzy about the supposed 'classes' Elodie would be subjected to should have been a comforting thought, but it almost made Elodie even more nervous to return.

"Varric never writes to me with nothing much," Dorian quipped. "And after all of those ideas for epic ballads I gave him, fighting alongside him last month. Tsk. Shame."

"If it's poetry you're after, I've got a limmerick for ya," Sera said, wickedness lacing her words.

"Oh how diverting-"

"Hard pass," Cassandra growled past Dorian's enthusiasm.

"Funny, that's the exact name of the position in the limmerick! Y'see you have two gents on either side of the-  _ow!_ " Sera yelped in surprise.

Cassandra had stopped her horse short, causing Sera's mount to rear its head back and force the elf into gripping the reins tighter. It whinnied in brief protest, shaking its head as Sera patted it between the ears. Dorian gave a little smile, then turned to Elodie almost as if he were assessing how truthful she was being while the other two argued.

She made eye contact with him, then shook her head a mere centimeter. The mage blinked long and slow like a cat.  _Understood_ , his gaze seemed to say.

"So are you two ladies going to be squabbling with each other the entire ride back," Dorian tutted, raising his voice over Sera's taunting. "Or do either of you fancy making a wager to start our morning off right?"

"I see you are channeling Varric even in his absence," Cassandra droned. "I will have to inform him of what a great influence you two have been on each other."

"You love it, sweetheart," Dorian replied curtly.

Cassandra gave a snort of disgust as Sera adjusted in her saddle.

"What sort of wager?"

"Well," Dorian said, his mount giving a calm snuffle beneath him as Elodie tucked the letter into one of her belted pockets. "I was thinking we could place a bet on who can balance a book on their head the longest as we ride in a canter. Loser not only has to make dinner for the rest of us, but has to wear a hat of the winner's own design for the rest of the day's ride."

"Boring," Sera snorted.

"Well then, you come up with something," Dorian shot back.

"Easy." Sera ruffled her bangs, further mussing them about her forehead and giving her wide-eyed stare of challenge an even more intense, off-kilter air. "We see who can stay hydrated the best. Whoever drinks their entire skein of water when we stop for lunch  _and_ holds their water the longest  _doesn't_ get scorpions in their bedroll tonight."

"Wait. Sera we can't waste-"

Dorian's protests were cut off as Sera snapped the reins of her mount sharply. She rode on ahead, giggling maniacally to herself, and Cassandra gave a great sigh.

"Hopefully she takes the stingers out of them this time," the Seeker said gruffly. "The little white ones she finds are not poisonous, but they do manage to sting something awful."

Elodie turned in shock.

"Maker, Cassandra. You can't be serious."

"I am. She is nothing if not resourceful, our Sera. Especially when she's angry."

"What did you do to anger her?" Dorian asked. "Dare I inquire?"

"Nothing. I merely suggested to her that she drink more often, and when she did not heed my warning, someone might have switched out her water skein for an empty one to teach her a lesson. She was not happy, and it seems it has inspired her recent challenge as well."

"You..." Elodie's jaw would not shut.

She blinked, checked her wrist. Purple, so she wasn't dreaming.

"Cass... you pranked the prankster?" Elodie asked breathlessly.

"I admit nothing," Cassandra said with a grin of her own. She snapped her mount into a smart trot as Dorian and Elodie both looked on with eyebrows raised in admiration.

"I'll watch your back if you watch mine tonight," Dorian muttered.

"Deal. First and third watch?"

"Take second and fourth, I want first to be sure to enchant a no-scorpion ward around our tent," he replied.

"Should we worry about Cassandra?" Elodie asked, furrowing her brow.

"Ha!" Dorian turned to her with a look of glee. "Not at all. I predict that Sera will be the first to lose, followed by me, and then you. Cassandra, however, has a bladder of steel. She doesn't even have the common decency to seem worried. She knows she's going to win the bet, that sneak."

Elodie snickered into her hand, the green glow of her mark flickering brighter in the dim light before the day. She shook her head at the mage beside her.

"You're absolutely ridiculous, you know."

"Would you have me any other way?" he cooed.

"No," Elodie said softly. "I like your ridiculousness."

"I'll have to write home all aflutter that the Inquisitor bestowed her graceful attentions on me, a dirty 'Vint. Mother will be so proud," Dorian sighed, batting his eyelashes in fake ecstasy. She clapped him on the knee, leaning off of her saddle to do so.

"Oh yeah, while we're on the subject of home," Elodie said. "Just so we're clear, I want to keep a brisk pace this trip and not stay in one place for long. If we get ahead of our scouts, it's no issue, we've got the map marked for the supply line Cassandra and Sera took to get here. The quicker we get to Skyhold, the better."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Are you anxious to get back?"

"I am," Dorian said. "I've read all of the books I've brought with me, plus all of the ones that I managed to shake the sand out of the last couple of days. I'm frightfully bored without the library to peruse."

"I lent you that one about the shieldmaiden and her captain, didn't I? Was it any good?"

"It had an entire chapter torn out of it! You basically recommended that I read a cliffhanger. Right when it was getting juicy, too."

"Oh?" Elodie asked, grinning at the indignation in Dorian's voice.

"Yes, oh. Oh shit, more like. Our shieldmaiden had just rescued her seafaring lover from the captain's former first mate, and just as the shieldmaiden was going to tell her how she felt and take the bosom-heaving pirate captain to her heavily armored chest in a passionate embrace... blank, ripped to shreds, smelling of spider spit. The last few chapters made no sense without that love-making scene, I am sure of it."

"Talk about devouring a good book," Elodie said, giving Dorian a smug little grin.

"Hardy har," Dorian replied, but he seemed to smile despite himself. As they rode on together, his smile fell away a touch. "It will be good to be back," he said, quieter this time. Elodie nodded. She felt the same way.

Mercifully, Dorian didn't mention anything further, about the letter or the trip before them. He passed Elodie the cooling salve without a word, motioned to his cheeks, and they rode on together in comfortable silence as the sun rose in satiny beige past the horizon. For the first time since she was thrown into its dusty belly, Elodie felt a bit of fondness for the heat and sand of the Western Approach. She didn't regret leaving it, but a part of her was vaguely glad she'd come, and glad she'd had Dorian by her side the entire time. Smearing the cream on her cheeks in preparation for the day, Elodie inhaled deeply, steeled herself, and finally looked homeward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all of the letters in the last few chapters, I hope they haven't put you off! I imagine that the Inquisition companions miss each other and the Inquisitor, especially after being out on the road as much as they are. When you factor in travel times it really puts it into perspective how long the Inquisition spends in an area at times! I like the idea that Varric's keeping in touch with so many people throughout the course of the game means that he would be in touch with a Quiz on good terms with him too. Getting Varric letters would feel so special!!
> 
> The next chapter, our girl finally comes home for a breather. And a much-needed greeting. I will say nothing more ;)


	23. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strap in for a bit of a long one, kiddos!

Skyhold was quiet when they returned in the predawn hours, a small scouting party riding ahead to announce their arrival so as not to alarm anyone. Elodie, distracted momentarily by the way everything washed in colorless chill before the sun rose over the Frostbacks, found herself across the bridge leading into the courtyard alone. Her party must have gone off ahead, because they were not behind her, and she could hear vague chatter from the stables. Good. She sighed, already feeling at peace from being out of the blighted, treeless Approach.

She dismounted from Adahl, leading the docile hart through the stone archway and into the courtyard. Movement to her left caught her eye, and Elodie only barely had time to look up at the Commander before he had his arms around her waist.

The sensation of being hugged, of being securely held in someone’s arms as they sighed against her skin, washed over Elodie in a soothing rush. She went limp, forgetting momentarily to hug him back. Cullen slipped one arm around her shoulders, his palm at the nape of her neck, and had his other about her waist to bring her flush against him. But something was… off. Unfamiliar. It hit her almost like a physical blow she could feel in her chest cavity.

Cullen had no armor on.

The realization left her frozen. Color drained from her face as she pressed into him, skin so close to skin for the first time. Soft, but strong. Irresistible. The fabric about his waist now the only layer between her fingertips and his flesh. How could someone so sturdy feel so gentle? Before she could think of an answer, Cullen knelt just enough to pick her up and swing her in a circle, giving a happy chuckle as he did so.  Elodie clung to him, buried her face in his neck no longer impeded by metal or fabric, and inhaled deeply.

Violets.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, setting her down on unsteady feet. “I woke up only a moment ago, and I had to see you immediately.”

“No harm done,” she answered, and she brought her eyes up to his eagerly for what felt like the first time since she’d left for the Western Approach.

Cullen was beaming down at her, his hair ruffled, his white tunic open just slightly at his collarbone. His bare forearms rested warmly on either side of her waist, and Elodie caught fistfuls of his shirt in her palms. It took everything in her to resist dragging her palms down his forearms, testing whether or not the fine hairs would tickle against her bare skin.

“How was the ride?” he whispered, tilting his head. “Are you sore?”

“No,” she answered, unsure of why she was blushing.

“Good,” he said. His voice held the same husky, self-indulgent timbre that it had when he’d kissed her on the battlements, and when he’d confessed to her in the library that he had wanted to take her. It shook the last of the self-resolve Elodie held in reserve. She broke.

“You said you had a list of things to show me upon my return, Cullen.”

“I do.”

“Well then. Shall we get started on them?”

Without waiting for an answer, she dragged him down to meet her lips, kissing him with abandon.

He did not protest. He smelled like herbs from the garden, tasted like honey, and Elodie couldn’t care less that they were in plain view of the courtyard. It was nighttime. They would blend in just fine if she could push him towards one of the walls veiled in shadow. They had kissed in more conspicuous places, hadn’t they? Elodie couldn’t think, but she was certain it had to be so.

As if he could read her mind, Cullen gathered her closer to him and backed her up until her shoulders hit stone, never breaking from her mouth for an instant. His tongue drew her lips between his teeth, gently biting at her, hungry. She whimpered, the sound caught in the air at his cheek as she tilted her head with his kiss. She was desperate to taste more of his explorations, desperate to taste Cullen as fully as she had before she’d left. It had been so long, too long.

She ran the tip of her tongue across the point of one of his canines, marveling at the way his hands moved to either side of her shoulders to shield her in darkness. His forearms came up to rest on the wall by either side of her head, his body weight crushing her into the cold stone. He rested against the wall like that, his form physically creating a barrier that seemed to glow around her as gentle torchlight filtered through the sheer cotton curtain of his white tunic.

“I missed you,” she whispered between his lips. Cullen merely responded with a growl, a guttural noise that sent shivers down Elodie’s spine.

“Show me,” he said, drawing rough, stubbled kisses over her cheek and down her jaw. She gasped at the sensation, rough and soft at once, and her eyes flew open. She was still in the middle of the courtyard, still had her hart behind her lazily pawing at the tamped-down dirt.

“Someone will see,” she protested, even as she lifted her leg at the behest of his seeking palm. He caught her mouth as his hand tucked itself underneath of her thigh, drawing her hips into sharp contact with his. With a jolt, and with both hands gripping her arse hard enough to leave bruises, Cullen bounced her up so that she could straddle his hips completely. Instinctively, she locked her feet at his lower back in order to help him hold her aloft.

“I don’t care,” he whispered. “Show me how much you missed me.”

He began to move, then, gently rocking her hips over his so that Elodie could feel just how much he was responding to one little kiss. At first, the feeling was dull. She could feel the hard length of him against her through the leather of her breeches and thin cotton of her smallclothes, sliding, taking his time, unrushed and relaxed. Rhythmically, keeping time with his kiss, Cullen lazily ground himself against her in the dark. It reminded her of when she was younger, unsure of how to take her own pleasure, and it somehow made the moment even sweeter now. Elodie was growing accustomed to the tension, the withheld sensation, the promise of more should they be anywhere but in the open courtyard, then all at once an electric tension grew at the base of her spine.

The layers of fabric separating them slowed Elodie’s enjoyment down, but did not inhibit it. She couldn’t get as close to Cullen as she craved, but still felt deeply connected as he moved. Somehow, the more he rocked her in his arms, the more heightened the sensation became. The more Cullen thrust against her, the length of him hard and straining against the simple fabric breeches he wore, the closer she got to breaking down.

How long had it been since she’d had an orgasm? Weeks? Months? Long before, back when she’d prepared to travel out into the desert. Since then, at the risk of sand grit getting into places she didn’t want rubbed raw, Elodie had not so much as indulged in a quick bedtime session even when she’d had a tent to herself. She was eager, desperate, and hypersensitive.

And Cullen was drawing pleasure from her, steadily and easily, as if it were the most natural thing to do in the shadows of Skyhold’s entrance.

Elodie couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could barely hang on. She didn’t believe it. The man who glanced away, flustered, when she took his arm after dinner, the man whose hands never strayed beyond the boundaries she’d set, the man who blushed when she breathed his name...  Cullen really was going to make her come for him helplessly in full view of the darkened courtyard.

His mouth at her neck, his hands cupping her arse in his palms, his breathing ragged, his teeth digging into her skin with a scandalous ache that made her want to scream, it was all too much. Her hands found his hips, her nails digging into his skin, and Elodie gave up with a shuddering gasp.

She crested beautifully, her orgasm surprising her with its intensity. She clawed at Cullen’s waist, whimpering as he bit harder into her neck, and just as she felt her orgasm sending tingling sensations up and down her thighs she lifted her hands to drag her fingers through his hair-

Blue. Her bracelet was blue.

Elodie blinked and opened her eyes groggily, not recognizing where she was for one sweet moment. Above her, the beige fabric of the tent was lit from outside, and she could hear the warm crackle of a fire nearby. The ground beneath the tent fabric and bedroll beneath her was plush with grass instead of shifting with sand, and she could smell smoke, green saplings, and elfroot. There were voices further off, the sounds of the day beginning. She blinked again, so sure that a moment ago she had been in Cullen’s arms that it actually made her head swim.

But it hadn’t been him. Not that it had mattered to her mind, so desperate was she for release. Elodie brought a hand to her face, dragging it down over her eyes blearily as she groaned. Her body was still shivering, the evidence of her unconscious pleasure abundant and slick between her thighs when she shifted to her side underneath of her blankets. In the night, she had snuggled into the bedding so tightly that they had cocooned around her, and as she lay there she could feel sweat beading at her temples and upper lip.

She stayed in bed, prone opposite an empty bedroll, until her ears stopped twitching and her breathing gradually slowed. Elodie thanked the Maker that Cassandra had taken dawn watch. When she slipped her hand underneath of her breeches, and then wriggled them underneath of her smallclothes, she could barely believe it. Sliding two fingers up and down the length of her folds, Elodie could barely stand how sensitive a sensation it brought. Trying to quell the flush it brought to her cheeks, Elodie unraveled herself with difficulty from her blankets.

This was unprecedented. No orgasms for months, and then Elodie managed to finish herself off in a wet dream. The thought was both empowering and frightening, considering how unbidden a thing it was. And yet, coming down in the afterglow, Elodie felt a kind of raw satisfaction. Her lust and anxiety slaked momentarily, she found herself in a good mood as she got up and began to change into her armor.

As she tugged on her leather gloves, Elodie marveled at what could have brought it on so suddenly. They were only a day’s ride from Skyhold now, which must have manifested the latent desire into what she’d just experienced. She thought of Cullen every night, nervous to reconnect with him and aching to hear the sound of his voice, but her dreams had never been so specific. This dream had been so real, so detailed, that she could barely focus on eating her breakfast. She kept reliving the scene as if she had shared it with Cullen in real life, a different kind of hunger on the forefront of her mind.

Andraste preserve her… what if she could ask him to reenact it for her, once she was back?

As Elodie saddled up Adahl, brushing the hart’s striped thighs with halfhearted strokes, she decided she was grateful that her sleep wasn’t haunted by nightmares for once. As she and her companions rode towards home, she realized that the dream would not be immediately translated into reality. She would have to call a war council, would have to unpack her things, needed to schedule a schematic overview with Dagna, and desperately had to turn in a bag full of research items she’d been collecting for Helisma. On top of that, she wanted to take a bath. Mulling all of this over, Elodie tried unsuccessfully to banish the image of Cullen in a thin cotton tunic from her mind.

“Is something wrong?” Cassandra asked her when they broke bread in a grove of pine trees later that day. Elodie shook her head, flicking a piece of rabbit gristle into the fire. Cassandra narrowed her eyes, the midday sun playing through the leaves overhead of them and casting her face in beautiful shadow. She looked skeptical. Elodie shrugged.

“Not wrong, per se. Just…”

Dorian glanced up, training his eyes on her as well. Mercifully, Sera seemed too busy trying to fit an entire haunch of rabbit meat into her mouth all at once to join in the conversation.

“Okay. I’ve wanted to head back for so long now,” Elodie said carefully, “that this almost feels like a dream I’m about to wake up from. Makes me nervous to return, in a way.”

“Ah.” Cassandra readjusted one of her gloves, wriggling her fingers tighter into their holds. “I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes. So many changes tend to occur when we are away on a mission, the place we return to hardly seems real at times,” the Seeker said as she rose. “But do not worry. It is still Skyhold, no matter what decorations line the walls. And it will not blink away when you wake up inside it.”

“Mmm. How delightfully poetic of you,” Dorian said appreciatively. There was a hint of playfulness in his voice, enough to keep the mood light. Sera grunted, swallowing the last of her mouthful of roasted meat.

“Speaking of renovations! Tavern was getting new benches, last I heard,” she said, turning to the side to belch into the air away from the party. Dorian tilted his head to the side, brows furrowing.

“Really? They did away with the ones with the filigree carvings?”

“The ones that looked like they had schlongs all over them, yeah,” Sera said, giving a short cackle. Cassandra made a disgusted noise and moved away from the fire to wash her utensils in the creek.

“You know they're birds, right? The filigree is meant to be the feathers on their wings,” Dorian said, allowing Sera a small grin.

“Wang feathers,” Sera laughed.

And with that, their lunch was over, and they were on their way.

* * *

With the sun setting over the horizon and her cowl set resolutely over her ears, Elodie rode into Skyhold several hours later. She was preceded by several of her best scouts and a small handful of Leliana’s agents, each laden with items and intel. Everyone began to scatter to the wind, eager to get resettled and resituated, and yet Elodie stayed on her hart. She glanced around the courtyard at the bustle, then up at the battlement walls, even craning her head to try to see the bridge up above her. The only people on the stairs leading to the great hall were the scouts she’d just sent, nobody else.

Where was the Commander?

Elodie had not allowed herself to hope that she would see him in any state of undress, but she had expected Cullen to at least pause in his work to come out to see her. Elodie sat atop Adahl, clutching the reigns between shaky fingers, glancing up at the battlements as if she could convince him to step out of his office if she just willed it hard enough.

“Do you intend to ride her all the way to the stables?” Blackwall asked, and Elodie blinked down at him in surprise. She’d barely been able to keep herself from jumping in the saddle at the sound of his voice. He reached up to help her off her mount and grabbed its reins. “I figured I’d take her for you while you relaxed.”

Now that she could get a good look at him, Elodie realized how exhausted Blackwall seemed. His mouth was set in a hard line, barely visible past his beard, and his brow was furrowed and tense. His hands were steady, but his eyes were vague and distant. The news must have hit him hard, if he’d been told the extensive details at all.

“Blackwall. I-”

“Don’t, Inquisitor,” he shushed softly. “We can discuss things later. You should go rest.”

She shut her mouth with a clack, guilt and apprehension roiling hot in her gut at the thought of having to tell him specifically what had happened with the Wardens. Maybe he already knew? Maybe Varric had spared her the effort and given Blackwall all of the details he could need? It was a sad thought. Elodie took his hand and dismounted, allowing Blackwall to lead Adahl away with a promise of a shared meal together soon. He left her standing alone in the center of the courtyard, the sun setting in rosegold behind the stone fortress at her back.

For a heartpounding moment, Elodie half expected her dream to come true now that she had dismounted, for the Commander to rush downstairs in a state of uncharacteristic desperation and twirl her around in his arms. Shame burned in her, since she knew that that specific portion of the dream was a scene from the romance novel Cassandra had lent her. She knew it was a cliche. A ridiculous public display of affection. Even so, a small secret part of Elodie’s mind wondered if it wouldn’t be fun to try anyway. He wouldn’t even have to lift her high, just a little bit, just enough of an embrace to make her feel missed and like he was enraptured with her being back at Skyhold.

But Cullen wasn’t even anywhere in sight.

She could go up to his office just as easily, a part of her reasoned. She could climb the stairs to her right, knock on his door, and say something too him first. But what would she say? _I’m back, Commander_. Was that too intrusive? Did it convey too much aggressive energy? It was easier to think about what she would write in a letter versus what she would say to him aloud. Did he miss the sound of her voice the way she did his?

“Excuse me,” Elodie flagged down a scout, who bowed with a fist to their chest. She returned the gesture briefly, then stepped forward with her question. “Do you happen to know what the Commander is doing at the moment?”

“He is in his office. He seemed to be expecting you, ser.”

“He’s already been given notice of my arrival? O-of our party’s homecoming, I mean.”

“I assume so, your Worship. He met with Sister Leliana naught but two hours ago to plan for your return. He said something about ‘making necessary preparations’, if I’m not mistaken, ser.”

“What errand are you running now? Did he send you on your current task?”

Part of Elodie was hoping ‘necessary preparations’ meant a meal they could share in Cullen’s office. It wouldn’t have to be much, just the pleasure of his company would be enough.

“He did, Inquisitor. I’m to fetch him a few messages from Sister Leliana.”

“Oh.” No dinner then. “I see.”

Dejectedly, Elodie wondered if she would have felt this way had she not dreamt of Cullen flying down the steps to meet her. It stung slightly that he hadn’t even paused in his work to greet the returning party. Did he really want Elodie to always be the one to come to him? He couldn’t step outside for a minute?

Then again, it had been months since they had last seen each other. And he had written her as plainly and as fervently as she could have expected Cullen to allow himself to. Had, in fact, exceeded her expectations. He’d written her with such intense confessions that a part of her, if she were being honest, was nervous as to how to respond to him in person, and this absence of his also carried with it an almost guilty sense of relief on her part.

If he weren't here, he couldn't see how nervous she was.

Even so, Elodie knew she shouldn’t take the openness in his letters for granted. And even discounting that openness, she realized that they had for the most part been communicating faithfully only through the written word, and that wasn’t the same as being able to see the other’s expressions in person.

Maybe Cullen was the nervous one. And maybe asking her to come to him gave him a chance to keep in control of the situation. To be in control of his emotions. Elodie let out a little exhale as it dawned on her. Looking outside of herself for a moment, she knew what she had to do.

“Shall I alert him of your return once more, Inquisitor?” the scout asked, seeming to sense what Elodie was pondering. "Possibly ask him to meet you elsewhere?"

“Oh, no, no it’s alright,” she answered immediately. “That is, I’ll go and see him now myself. Carry on.”

“By your leave, then, your Worship,” the scout said, bowing again as they headed for the stairs by the stables.

Elodie could feel her jaw ache as she clenched it harder, and she forced herself to relax her bite. There was nothing to fear from this, and he had written her as such. She climbed the stairs leading to Cullen’s office, each footfall reminding her of a letter he’d sent her while she was away.

The one about his sister. The one about teaching Cole to arrange daggers more carefully. The one about Josephine’s waffle surprise. The one about the constellation that reminded him of her vallaslin. The one about his memory of the boat ride from Kirkwall. The one where he promised to show her how much he’d missed her in person.

By the time Elodie had reached the top of the landing, her knees were weak and she was breathing more quickly. It wasn't from exerting herself on the climb. Each memory of every little letter Cullen had thought to send her, however sporadically, left her feeling too light for her boots.

The same notion that rocked her when she came to see Cullen months ago - _months ago, really, already months ago_ \- hit her again. She was about to confess to Cullen. To reach out to him. Elodie braced herself and knocked on the door, fearing the worst and hoping for the best. Before her knuckles even dropped away from the wood, she heard him shuffling inside.

“It’s op-” Cullen started to say, and the sound of his voice almost brought her to her knees. It had been so long, too long, since she’d gotten to hear it. He had cut himself off, and he blurted suddenly from the center of his office, “Inquisitor?”

Elodie opened the door slowly, a grin too big for her face stretching the tanned skin around her vallaslin tight. Giddily, she watched as Cullen shoved back from his desk and stood to meet her. She reached up for a hug as he approached her, and for a moment it seemed to take Cullen by surprise. Elodie didn’t register it in time to keep from jumping on him, embracing him on her tiptoes with her arms flung about his neck. He caught her, his arms awkwardly positioned so that he could barely support her as she fell against him.

“Cullen,” Elodie said, nuzzling into his mantle as she squeezed him tighter."It's you."

Cullen’s arms tightened around her waist, his cheek nestled against her temple.

“Of course it is," he answered, his voice amused and strained as he repositioned her in his arms. She made no move to help him, too intent was she on hugging him close. He paused, cleared his throat, then added, "I ah, only just now heard of your return. Did you come up to my office immediately?”

"I might have," Elodie mumbled.

Cullen gave a little laugh, as if he couldn't believe it.

She snuggled into him, and the both of them sighed simultaneously as their bodies relaxed into one another's for the first time in months. For a moment everything was forgotten, even words, until Elodie realized that she almost wanted to cry. A stupid notion, and she wasn't sure where it had come from. Fatigue, maybe?  _You're not a child, get it together_. Sniffing back the sting at the corner of her eyes, she smoothed his mantle down with shaky fingers.

"How are you?" Elodie smiled sadly. "It's been a while since I could ask that in person, hasn't it?"

"It has." Cullen brought a hand up to her curls, smoothing her bangs back behind her ear. He traced the shell-like curves of her ear, back up and around, and trailed his finger to finally rest against her jaw. "I'm... good. Better now," he answered, barely audible. He blinked quickly, then busied himself straightening her cloak about her shoulders as she finally loosened her grip on him. "Are you doing alright?"

“Mmm-hmm."

For a moment, Elodie wondered if she could ask to spend the night. Would he let her? The thought made her blush.

"Did you miss me?” she asked, grinning up at him mischievously.

He pulled away, gentle confusion written on his face.

“Did you not get my letters?”

His voice was tense, short. It sounded like he hadn't considered the possibility of them getting lost before this instant, and Elodie immediately regretted joking with him.

“I did, Cullen, don’t worry,” she said, her grin fading to a faint memory. “Only teasing you."

“Oh. R-right." His tone softened immediately. "Sorry. I should've caught that."

"No, no, don't be, I shouldn't have said that. Not after all the wonderful things you wrote me," Elodie said, her voice low and embarrassed. She glanced up just in time to see Cullen flush pink before he turned his gaze upwards to the rafters, as if they'd give him some reprieve from his misstep in the conversation.

"I’ve ah... I've definitely been out of practice in regards to your teasing,” he said. "Not that that's a bad thing, by any means."

"I can stop if you like."

"No, don't," Cullen said quickly. He cleared his throat, swallowed, then tried again. "Maybe do me the favor of going easy on me, though? Just until I can remember how to converse without a quill in my hand," he said, a twinge of self-deprecation at the edge of his voice.

"I'll only tease you a little, then. Agreed."

He bit his lip, looking contrite, and Elodie marveled at the way he accepted her pushes with such awkward tenderness. It was a far cry from the dream version she sought out instinctively and secretly at night. The Cullen before her was a stark contrast to the one she held in the back of her mind; he was gentleness and whispers where her dream had been bites and roughness, quiet and warm where her dream had been vibrant and sudden. But even so, even though she could sense a spot of nervousness between them, there was still that magnetism that she had been drawn to from the very beginning. When Cullen looked up, his hazel eyes almost a muted brown in the dim candlelight, Elodie wanted nothing more than to take his head in her hands and murmur benedictions against his temple until he could sleep soundly. The way his lips pressed together, the way his shoulders rolled back, made her want to lick slow sweetness into his skin until he begged her for mercy.

"What is it?" he asked, tilting his head.

Elodie tried to look as if she hadn't been imagining the way his scar would taste. She nodded, realized that was an odd thing to do, and gave a flustered sigh.

"Can we maybe start over?" she asked, pressing into him.

"Start... over?"

"Yes. I didn't really greet you properly, and it might have thrown me off," she said, only half-joking.

"Oh. Well, then, by all means," he agreed, breathless. A soft glow suffused her being, warm and aching.

"Hello, Cullen," she said softly. At the sound of her voice, his eyes crinkled at the corners in a smile.

"Hello, Elodie," he whispered, his voice catching.

She wondered if he hadn't said her name aloud the entire time she was gone. He addressed her by her title to others, did he not? So to hear him say it now... Maker, she'd missed this man. She tilted her head back, inviting a kiss, one that didn't come. Instead of their mouths meeting, Cullen dragged his lips against her scar. Elodie closed her eyes at the rough stubble brushing against her temple, then down her cheek, and when Cullen pulled away she lazily opened them again to get a good look at him. Worry streaked through her, however, as she took in his countenance more fully.

Cullen looked exhausted.

Dark purple veins were visible in the shadows underneath of his eyes, as if he weren’t sleeping. His skin was pallid, and she could smell the slight rosiness of embrium on his breath. A healing draught? A painkiller? Her smile fell completely away and she brought her hand to her teeth. With a bite to her middle finger and a swift tug, Elodie had peeled the glove from her fingers. She pressed them to Cullen’s forehead and neck; indeed he felt warm to the touch.

“What are you doing?” he asked her fondly, nuzzling into her palm. Instinctively, she held her hand against his cheek, cupping his face and soothing her thumb in an arc across his cheekbone. She could not tell if it was because of the coolness of her fingers, or because he had missed her touch, but Cullen’s eyes fluttered shut as if he were relieved suddenly of a deep pain.

“You’re very warm.”

“I’m fine,” Cullen muttered, the lie thin to both of their ears. Elodie frowned deeper.

"You're joking, right?" Elodie shook her head. "This isn't normal. You should be sleeping, not working."

"I could order you to do the same, you know," he said, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes. "You only just got back from the Approach, have yet to meet about your reports, have yet to clean your weapons, perhaps even yet to water your mount." Elodie felt Cullen's arm tighten about her waist. "And yet you're here, dallying with your Commander."

"My overworked Commander, yes," she said, smirking at him. "It's almost as if he were important to me or some other such nonsense."

"Mmm. Have you even eaten yet?" he asked. As he did so, he ran his palm up and down her back, soothing the aching muscles there. Elodie barely resisted a moan when he jostled her a bit by her belted mail. "My dear Inquisitor, you're not even out of your armor yet."

“No, but that is an excellent idea."

"What is?" Cullen asked dryly. "Getting you out of your armor?"

"That _would_ be nice," Elodie laughed. "But I was talking more about getting food."

"You definitely should," he answered, moving forward to plant another kiss on her forehead. Elodie tried to stand on her tiptoes, but was not quick enough before Cullen pulled away. She frowned, cursing the fact that she was so many inches smaller than him. He could easily capture her lips if he chose, but it was a struggle for her to force him to meet hers. Even the little touch from his kiss seemed to burn with heat from Cullen's skin, though, and she remembered the task at hand.

"Come on, come have dinner with me,” she begged, stroking the side of his face in hopes to ply him further. “I’m sure I could find some broth in the kitchens. It would do you some good to take a break.”

She wasn’t hungry, but she was hoping she could get some warm liquid into the stubborn man. His expression looked distant already, as if her mere suggestion was enough to cause him to stand straighter just to prove her wrong. He shook his head, moving to kiss her palm.

"I have too much to finish here."

"But you're feverish," she protested.

“I’m fine, Elodie,” he repeated. “Whenever I'm tired, I run a bit hot. That's all. It's nothing to worry about.”

“Hmph." She drilled her fingers gently against the metal of his gorget with the hand not at his cheek, trying to look subtle instead of worried. "Your scout said you were waiting for me. Were you really, or did you tell them that so they would leave you alone?”

“I was waiting for you,” Cullen said, albeit rather guiltily. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t still have work to do.”

"What are you so preoccupied with tonight, anyway?" she asked, glancing past him to where his desk lay covered in parchment, some runes, a few boxes, and several books. There was a quill set to the side, an inkwell, and many, many candles.

"The usual homecoming paperwork," he answered. "Upon your arrival, on top of the normal reports and testimonies I normally get, there was also an influx of correspondence from Orlais that I needed to tend to immediately."

"I thought I told Josephine to send those to me so that you wouldn't have to do that," Elodie protested.

"You did." Cullen's scar stretched white as smugness washed over his features. "I told her to send them back to me in your absence." 

"Stubborn man," Elodie murmured, sliding her hands back around his neck so that she could pull him back into a tight embrace. He grunted, then held her back with a warm ferocity. His neck craned down so that he could kiss her shoulder through the lapel of her leather armor, then her exposed jaw, and finally her cheek once more. But when Elodie moved to kiss him more completely, Cullen pulled away before their lips could meet.

“I, um,” he backed up, putting arm’s distance between them. Elodie’s heels sank to the floor, and her heart seemed to follow suit. “I really should get back to work if I’m to finish before midnight.”

“Oh. Do…” Elodie glanced at her feet, trying to quell the unease surfacing in her chest. “Do you want me to leave?”

“If you want to stay, you can, but I’m afraid I’ll be incredibly boring.” Cullen glanced her over, from her ears to her toes, and then added warmly, “I'm afraid you'll be incredibly distracting, as well.”

"What, with my talking? I can be silent."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"You won't even notice me," Elodie said, grinning despite herself.

"How could I not?" Cullen whispered.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she repeated, barely conscious of the words she'd let loose.

Cullen smiled, bringing his hand up to his nape.

“You said that already.”

"I did? I'd forgotten,” Elodie said.

He gave a permissive chuckle, but otherwise looked preoccupied. As if her words had struck a cord within him that made him uncomfortable, as opposed to content. Elodie paused, shifting her weight between her feet back and forth as she tried to figure out what to say next. What had happened, since his last letters to her? Was his work, the papers he'd taken on against her request, was that more important than her homecoming?

"Will you... can you come and see me when you finish work?" she asked, and was rather pleased at how well she hid her worries from her voice.

"I can, if you like," Cullen said, seemingly oblivious to her turmoil. Elodie crossed her arms as he turned back to his desk, and she chewed her lip to try to keep more words from blurting out into the empty space between them. There was a pause, an awkward silence, and she decided to ease both of their discomfort.

“Are we okay, you and I?”

“O-of course,” Cullen breathed, like he was taken aback that she’d even ask. “What makes you-"

"No, nothing," she made an effort to smile and raised both her hands as Cullen turned back to face her. "I have to ask for my own, um," she patted the center of her chest, right where her mail lay. "For my own nerves, I guess. It's been a while since we've gotten to talk, face to face. And I just..." she shrugged again, her words failing her.

"You're nervous?" Cullen asked, and if she wasn't mistaken, it seemed almost like he enjoyed the idea. He looked relieved, or perhaps intrigued. It was hard to see clearly, what with him turned away from the flames of the candles as he faced her. He leaned one hip against the desk and crossed his arms. "Nervous to talk with me?"

She nodded.

"Why is that?"

She shrugged.

"Probably just fatigue. You'll be back to interviewing me about my Templar vows after a good night's rest," Cullen surmised, and now Elodie could see clearly that he was laughing at her. With her. Gentle teasing, just like he'd asked for. His eyes were still dull and tired, but at least now they were creased in amusement. She bit her lower lip to try to keep from smiling back, but it did not work.

"You're one to talk," she rejoined. "My overworked Commander."

"Mmm, fair enough," he said with a chuckle.

"You'll really come find me, though? When you're done here?"

"Yes, most definitely. Where will you be?”

“Somewhere in the great hall, maybe in my quarters. I might go take a bath before that, though, Maker knows I must smell like spider glands and gurgut innards.”

“You smell like lemongrass, actually,” Cullen said, moving back behind his desk as he turned a paper in his hands. “It’s not bad at all.”

“That’s the salve I wrote you about,” Elodie replied, tucking her hair behind her ear. He set down the paper he'd taken, stacking it onto a pile to his left. She wondered if that was Orlesian correspondence, or perhaps agent intel? It had to be intel. It wasn't gilded and stamped with gold the way Orlesian letters tended to be.

"It's pleasant," Cullen said, surprising Elodie into glancing up to his eyes once more. "Truly.”

Cullen was standing behind his desk, both hands flat on the wood, and he looked up at her with his head tilted in fond curiosity. Backlit by dozens of candles skewered upon a makeshift candelabra, the shadows beneath his eyes were even more pronounced. He seemed to remember himself when Elodie's lips parted; he cleared his throat and glanced back down towards the maps and memos strewn over the wooden surface before him. It took all of Elodie’s remaining energy not to pry harder.

“Glad you think so. I should...” she swallowed hard. "I should go, then."

“I won’t be more than a few hours,” Cullen promised, putting an end to the choppy back and forth.

Elodie moved towards the door, feeling a bit shaken. He had held her, brushed kisses across her skin, and it wasn't that this did not satisfy her. But she wanted more. She wanted what he had promised in his correspondence. She wanted proof that he had missed her back; had he even said it to her in person, in so many words? Their letters didn’t read like this, so why did their words fail them in person so suddenly?

With a cold wash of realization, Elodie remember a minor segment within Cullen's final letter. In it, he'd mentioned a problem. An issue he wanted to be able to bring up to her in person. Something that was eating at him, but that he didn't want to worry her with at the time. Something he should have told her right away that he hadn't told her yet. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest, ice slushing in her veins at the thought that he was hiding something for her sake.

If he needed to talk about it later, so they would. But she refused to leave it like this. She refused to allow her nerves to dictate her affections.

Elodie walked over to the desk resolutely, and thrust her hand out over the maps and papers Cullen had strewn over its surface. He stared at it, glanced up to her eyes, and then realized that she was making a tiny _give me_ gesture with her fingers. Hesitantly, he reached for a quill to hand to her. Elodie laughed, and before he could take the quill she grabbed his wrist, leaning over the desk with a bit of difficulty. She'd never realized how broad a workspace this was. Cullen protested, but did not resist.

"What are y-"

Taking his hand in both of hers, Elodie curled her fingers about his knuckles and brought the back of his hand up to her lips. She kissed his hand with trembling lips, over and over, pressing fondness into every indent between his knuckles. His free hand twitched at his side; she could hear the leather creak as he tightened it into a fist and then relaxed it. Keeping her lips close to his hand, Elodie raised her eyes to his.

Cullen was staring at her, lips parted, cheeks flushed pink and hot. Maker, he was beautiful, even in his exhaustion. He looked undone, in a way, perhaps because of the warmth coursing through him from his focus on his work, perhaps because of the internal struggle he seemed to be fighting for his self-control. No matter what it was, no matter how long he needed before telling her, she had to let him know she was okay with it. Elodie's heart beat faster, and she grew even bolder.

"I know you're tired, Cullen. And I know there are things on your mind. But I want _you_ to know that even this little hello was appreciated." He gave a helpless scoff, as if he had regretted having to 'start over' and say hello properly. Elodie ignored it, pressing on. "Therefore, if I'm in my quarters when you come calling for me... I'll leave them unlocked for you."

He exhaled, shock forcing the breath out of him like her words had been a physical blow. Stretched out over the desk as she was, Elodie could feel her ribs aching from where they had cracked before, each breath bringing a sting between her shoulder blades where her muscles lay tensed in knots... but she stayed there, enraptured by the man before her.

"I don't know if... I mean..." Cullen trailed off, his words stumbling over themselves.

"You wouldn't be intruding," Elodie whispered against his knuckles. "I promise."

His free hand was at his nape, dragging across the short hair by the base of his neck, and then Cullen grabbed Elodie's hands in both of his. The gesture seemed to surprise them both. He met her eyes with hesitant clarity, his pupils wide and his tongue darting out to draw in his lower lip. His jaw clenched, unclenched, and then he gripped her hands tighter as he seemed to find his courage.

“Wait for me there, then?” Cullen asked her, his voice hopeful and small.

“I will." Elodie paused, then added, "If I accidentally fall asleep too early, I want you to wake me up. Promise me.”

"I won't keep you up on my behalf if you're tired," he said, his tone cautious. "You must truly be exhausted. And eager to shake the rest of the sand from your clothes."

"You have no idea," Elodie groaned. To his credit, Cullen laughed once more. She glanced back up to him, squeezed his hands, and added, "But I already feel more relaxed, by virtue of getting to speak with you again. I just wanted you to know that."

"Truly?" he asked, innocent disbelief clouding his features.

"No teasing here," she said by way of answer. "For once."

Elodie watched as he smiled again, a brief ghost of a grin that pained her to see. His hands tightened around hers in a gentle, responsive squeeze, and then they mutually dropped away from one another in understanding of their current plight. Elodie's heartbeat quickened when Cullen cleared his throat. He tried to look up and away to hide the fact that he was blushing wildly, and she freed him from her stare by looking down at the desk that separated them. The map of Thedas stretched before him, her path home clearly marked in red with notes along the route. It hurt, in a way, to see how thin he had stretched himself to ensure her safe journey home.

_Home_.

There was time for this later, when she had had a chance to resettle. She needed to give Cullen time, as well. Elodie took a step back, then grabbed her glove as an afterthought. Before they could get caught up in another inane loop of pleasantries, she gave him a little wave with the garment, one which he returned, and then Elodie showed herself out.

* * *

The cavern that the undercroft had been built into was one of many. After dwarven renovation crews had deemed Skyhold safe upon arrival, the scouts had taken to unlocking and excavating the other cave doors to see what else the fortress held. They had found three public baths situated by thermal springs within the mountain itself running underneath of the great hall. Mosaic walls, ivory inlay, and beautiful natural light suffused these areas, with only minor damage and rubble to clear.

But they had been abandoned seemingly after structural integrity was compromised, and the water flow less than satisfactory when she had last seen them. Elodie had long since devoted resources towards their renewal, but had yet to be home long enough to enjoy more than a quick private bath in her quarters. The week she'd spent relaxing with Cullen before having to head to the Western Approach had been a distracted one, to say the least, and the public bath had not been on the forefront of her mind at the time. Now, the baths beneath were going to be her welcome-home present to herself.

That is, if she could figure out how to get there.

Elodie went up to her quarters before doing anything else. It was difficult, not to be distracted by the familiarity therein. A fire burned in the hearth, low and warm, and on the desk there was a tea set with a pitcher of fresh water to heat in the kettle whenever she was ready. Walking over and picking up the little tin containing the herbs, Elodie could smell chamomile and orange peel. A little note beside it made her smile.

_Welcome back, Inquisitor._

_-L_

The large four poster bed was the most difficult temptation of all. It beckoned to her with its plush mattress, large enough that she could sleep diagonally across it if she so chose. It practically begged her to lay down and lose herself in its pillowy depths. It craved her peace, wanted to help her let the tension seep from her bones. Elodie almost succumbed, but at the last minute she turned from it.

For one, she really was grubby, that hadn't been a lie. She sniffed at her arm and she practically could still inhale the sand. And for two, she wanted to wait up a bit longer to see if Cullen would accept her invite. The idea of collapsing into the mound of sheets and cushions and blankets was a beautiful one... but the bed was also big enough to share.

The thought made her burn with a pleased flush, even though nobody had access to the imagery but her. Quickly, she grabbed a change of clothes, herbal soaps she'd bought in Redcliffe, and a brush. She shoved all of those into an over the shoulder satchel, made sure to arrange her weapons onto the rug in a neat line so that she would not forget to oil them when she got back, and left with hot water in mind.

She looked for a door from the undercroft, but there was none. It had been sealed off, Harritt said, in favor of a more stable entrance further to the south. Before Elodie could duck out, their new arcanist Dagna pulled her into an immediate conversation. The little dwarf's voice was sweet, but Elodie just wanted to bathe.

“How do I get to the baths from here?” she asked after a few minutes of pleasantries. Dagna grinned wickedly.

“I’ll tell you, but first…”

“First?” Elodie furrowed her brow.

“First can I please see the mark!” the dwarf practically burst with elation.

Elodie gave her a twisted smile, surprised and amused, and began to unbuckle her fingerless gloves.

“Deep breaths,” Harrit said from behind them, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “Don’t want you passing out from overexcitement.”

“I won’t faint! Probably,” Dagna protested.

“You’ll have your hands full with this one, Inquisitor,” he said to Elodie. “But she’s good at what she does, I’ll give her that.”

“I do what I can,” Dagna beamed, her eyes glued to Elodie’s palm.

Feeling slightly vulgar, Elodie slid her glove off and held her hand up to the light. It caught a stray orange tinge from the torches lighting up the underground workspace, but otherwise it glowed with sharp green fragments slicing deeply across her palm. Dagna made a soft, chirpy sound that Elodie took for amazement. “Wow.”

“You think so?” Elodie teased, flexing her hand a bit. “I thought it was only an _ooh_ at best.”

“I thought it would be like a cut or a wound, but…” Dagna shook her head as she ignored Elodie’s ribbing. “It’s like a ghost of one. Or a shadow. Or a dream, if you have those.”

“Mmm,” Elodie grunted, preferring not to be reminded of that avenue of thought. “The baths, Dagna. Can you tell me how to get to them?”

“Oh sure.” She blinked, leaning back a bit, and pointed out towards the entrance to Skyhold. “Go out near Lady Montilyet’s office. Just past her office, before you hit the gardens, you'll see a door leading down a staircase lit with sconces. Those are the lady’s baths.”

Elodie thanked her and left, trying not to rush. She nodded at the guests that Skyhold housed, a few people wearing ruby brooches and silver-threaded corseting. Bursting past the door down to the library, Elodie was gripped with a sudden thought.

She didn’t know what was required of her in the public baths. If there were other visiting dignitaries besides the ones she'd just passed, would she embarrass the Inquisition by washing the blood from her hair in one of their pools? She hesitated, and it was just enough time for Josephine to walk out and squeak in fright.

“Inquisitor!”

“Josephine,” Elodie nodded, her mind stuttering to a halt at the sight of her diplomat.

“Welcome home! I’d received word you’d arrived but you were gone by the time I walked out to the balconies.”

“I went upstairs to drop off some things.”

“You’re… are you calling a war council meeting? Should I prepare anything?”

“No,” Elodie frowned, feeling a headache developing right in her temples above her ears. “I just wanted a bath.”

“That would be my first priority after weeks of travel as well,” Josephine said, giving her a small nod. “I only wish I’d known you were arriving sooner. I’m afraid the one in your quarters will take a moment to draw water for. However, if you wait here, I can-”

“Oh, no, sorry. I meant immediately. I’ve been meaning to try out the public ones downstairs,” Elodie paused, huffing under hear breath, “if I can find them.”

“Oh.” Josephine burst into a pleasant smile. “The public baths? That’s a much easier task. Let’s go.”

“T-together?”

“Yes, naturally. I was on my way down before dinner just now,” Josephine smiled, gesturing to herself with no tablet or quill in hand. Elodie smiled nervously, and her friend’s grin faltered. “Unless you wish to bathe alone?”

“Ah…” Elodie hesitated, and her Antivan friend put on a very hospitable smile.

“I never knew if the Dalish bathed privately or not, but I understand if it is not something you’re accustomed to. I am amenable either way,” Josephine said. “Would you prefer me to clear the baths for your own personal use?”

Part of Elodie wanted to say yes, but that would take even more time. Plus, at least with Josephine around, Elodie wouldn’t get sleepy. She’d have conversation to keep her awake and aware. She shook her head.

“Not at all, Lady Montilyet. Some company would actually be really nice.”

“Oh splendid!” Josephine beamed. “I’ll lead the way!”

* * *

Once they had turned in the opposite direction of the rare books library, a long hallway lit by soft-burning torches revealed the entrance to the baths. It took two more doors to get into the baths, a precaution most likely to keep certain that the steam would stay contained and that anyone who wanted to bathe felt their privacy was respected.

“There are three baths underneath of Skyhold,” Josephine was saying as they walked. “This one is for women. There is one nearer to the waterfall underneath of our dungeons is for men. And there is one before you hit the kitchens for those who prefer not to identify with either of those options, or who wish to bathe with young and sometimes rowdy children. They split the hours there, because those baths are much bigger.”

"You sound like you're giving me a tour," Elodie said with a grin.

"I'm sorry! I've been showing people around the fortress for so long it is second-nature at this point," the Antivan replied. She looked a bit proud, almost, if Elodie squinted hard enough.

“Do you come down to bathe often?”

“Oh yes,” Josephine said with a smile. “It is always a pleasant time. I’ve had many a wonderful conversation with Minaeve there, actually. She is riveting company, once you get to know her.”

They walked on, opening the final door to the women’s bathing area, and Elodie stopped so suddenly that she almost tripped as her sandal caught the stone.

“Andraste’s arse,” Elodie muttered, partially from having stubbed her toe, but mostly in awe.

“We are, indeed, very blessed,” Josephine agreed with an amused smirk on her lips.

Elodie turned away from the Antivan as she took in the grandeur before her. The baths were gorgeous and expansive, filled with steam that vented through large, open windows carved out beneath the tremendous waterfalls behind Skyhold’s structure. The white noise from the rushing water beyond them immediately relaxed Elodie, as did the smell of juniper and something floral and bouncy. The place gave off an aura of royal luxury, even in its simplicity.

And it smelled _so clean_.

Elodie was used to less opulence. The Dalish bathed similarly out in the forest… if by similar, one meant in public as well. It was simple. You would find a good stream, and if you were lucky the mage of your clan would be around to set heated runes within the water like hot rocks around you, meant to carry the stress away from your bones while preventing a chill. Elodie’s clan would wash with herbs and seeds ground into a paste, along with clay if the hunters had gotten into something smoky or rancid, and then they’d rinse it away from where others were washing and get out. That scent stuck with her; she lamented not being able to find its match in Redcliffe.

All of this meant that baths deliberately cut into stone, soaps and oils of such fragrant lavishness, and hot water at her beck and call... these were all riches she couldn’t even imagine as a child. A singular bath she had figured out very quickly the first time she’d had to stay in Jader with city elves.

But this… Elodie was at a loss.

Her friend must have sensed her bewilderment, because Josephine stepped in with a little throat clear.

“So we wash over there first,” she said gently, motioning without moving forward any further. “You can kneel on the tiles or bring over a wooden stool to sit on. Whatever makes you comfortable, just don’t get soap in the water. Speaking of which, soaps are provided for us in that little basket just past there. We all try to be sparing with them, though. They were a gift from the du Lancet family and we don’t know if we can order more without them spiking the price.”

“That’s alright. I prefer my own toiletries anyway,” Elodie said. “There’s nobody here. Do we just walk in?”

“No,” Josephine quipped, leading Elodie by her elbow to a curtained alcove at their left. She pulled the gauzy, cream-colored fabric back, revealing a boudoir area for changing and relaxing. "Stop in here first!"

“Did Viv-”

“Madame de Fer oversaw all of the reconstructions, yes,” Josephine answered, too happy to even let Elodie finish. “Isn’t it lovely? We had baths like this in Antiva! Well, not exactly, not Orlesian style, but close! My sister and I would go after a long day of lessons, then after a relaxing bath we would braid each other’s hair as we let rose water soak into our skin.”

“That sounds amazing,” Elodie chuckled.

“I could braid yours, if you like, when we get out?” Josephine offered, already moving into the boudoir.

“Maybe. But right now, I just want to get back to smelling like myself again.”

“Ah, forgive me! It’s been a long day for you, after all,” Josephine motioned to the shelves. “By all means. Let us enjoy.”

It took Josephine much longer to unstrap and unbelt herself than it took Elodie. There was a small ounce of hesitation, where Elodie worried not for herself but for her Antivan friend, right as she was about to shed her smallclothes. But Josephine turned slightly away, offering Elodie modesty even as she undressed herself, and Elodie pulled the last scraps of admittedly dingey cotton from her body with a sigh of relief.

It took all of her energy not to run to the water immediately. She took out her soaps, which were comforting in and of themselves, but she was most excited to use her newest concoction. In a tin jar, Elodie held an experimental conditioning serum she’d made with Dorian before coming home.

It consisted of vandal aria essence that she’d collected while in the Approach, some crushed pearls, and an unscented oil Dorian said he used for his own tresses. The result was silky, absorbed instantly into her curls, and it smelled like summer birthdays. She was positively elated to get a chance to use it.

She walked over, opened the faucet, and began to wash herself with an ill-contained sigh. She took handfuls of almond paste and scrubbed it into her arms and chest, paying close attention to the spots she knew her blood ran hot and kept scent trapped against her skin. Rinsing several times, Elodie made sure no grains of sand lingered in crevices, wrinkles, or folds of her body. She wanted no stragglers from the Approach.

After a moment, Elodie was aware of Josephine taking a stool and setting up across the way, the steaming water separating them and offering just enough privacy for the two women to feel at ease in each other’s naked company. Elodie stretched, popping her right shoulder with a satisfying crack. Then she began to slough off the dead skin from her knees and elbows with a pumice stone.

When she was pink and tingly, Elodie rubbed an earthen powder into her curls, lathering it into a foam that smelled lightly of moss and nothing else. The smell of old sweat, dried blood, and pyrophite was finally fading from her nostrils, thank the Maker. She rinsed off twice more, paying close attention to tracing out the grooves of her ears to make sure all of the blasted grit was gone forever. Wringing out her heavy curls, Elodie opened the cap to the conditioning serum and smiled automatically.

Using only two droplets, Elodie recapped the container carefully so as not to touch her slick fingers to anything else. She took it between her hands, smoothing it out over her entire palm, and then began to drag her hands through her curls. The effect was immediate. The crunching at the ends she’d been experiencing, the thirst she’d subjected her curls to, was instantly quenched. The smell, too, was divine. It reminded Elodie of laying in a field, sunshine glinting through the flesh of her eyelids, warm and safe, honey on the tip of her tongue and grass kissing lightly at the edge of her ears.

It was difficult to rinse it away, but luckily the perfume of it lingered gently in the steam even after Elodie had wrung her curls of the serum for the last time. Josephine was already in the bath, her hair free from her usual braids and her makeup gone, and Elodie moved to join her.

“How does it feel to truly be clean again?” Josephine asked with a smile.

She must have read Elodie’s reports. They had, admittedly, devolved near the end of the journey into scribbles about how horrible sand and blood were when mixed together.

“Better than you can imagine,” Elodie answered. She stepped into the same pool as her friend and slowly lowered herself up to her neck into the water. “I thought I was going to smell like dried spider intestines and dirt for the rest of time.”

“Ugh, you are right, I _cannot_ imagine,” Josephine said, wrinkling her nose playfully.

“Josie,” Elodie said, turning so her back was to her friend, “can you see any bruising between my shoulders?”

“No.” Josephine moved forward, examining Elodie’s skin with careful eyes. “But the light is dim. Why? Are you hurting?”

“A little. I took a potion earlier this morning, so I’m hesitant to take another so soon. I think it’s just from walking as much as we did last week.”

Both women sat back, and Elodie hoped the hot water would ease the ache.

“I called some places in Val Royeaux, as you requested,” Josephine said. “They will be sending a healer with extremely deft hands to begin training our surgeons on how to relax muscle cramps.”

“That’s fantastic,” Elodie said, rubbing absently at her side beneath the water as she stretched her back in a twist. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

“Nonsense. It would not only benefit you. The standing army we have will require more physical therapy to keep them in fighting condition, especially if we are soon to have them doing more than running drills.”

“Does Cullen agree with that?”

“You know, it surprised me, but only The Iron Bull does not think it a good use of resources. He mentioned something about being able to fix sore joints himself? I do not recall his exact phrase.”

“I imagine he’ll sing a different tune if the masseuse is a redhead,” Elodie chuckled.

“He has a proclivity for redheads?” Josephine murmured. “I did not know that!”

“He does. But I feel like Bull is attracted more at his core to someone who will give him a good fight,” Elodie said. “Regardless of hair color or…” She remembered something and cursed.

“What is it?”

“I owe Varric ten coppers.”

She shook her head, and then recounted their bet to the diplomat.

“Dorian… and Bull?” Josephine stuttered.

“I think they’re well-suited for one another, but…” Elodie sighed. “Neither of them did more than flirt a bit about staffs the entire time we were in the Western Approach.”

“I never see those two anywhere near one another in Skyhold,” Josephine said, furrowing her brow. “Are they so different when they’re out in the field together?”

“They are, and they aren’t,” Elodie said, relaxing her back against the smooth pebbles inlaying the wall of the tub. “Dorian never shies away from being an incorrigible flirt if he's given opportunity, to the point where I am certain the rumors don’t know who to pair him with next. And Bull is a bit dense when it comes to flirting when he doesn’t initiate it himself. He’s a tease. He jabs a lot, and his honesty is pretty brutal. I wonder if he recognizes when he’s putting Dorian in the situations he is.”

“Like what?”

“Like..." Elodie resituated herself in the water, lowering her body even more fully underneath of the warmth. "Lately, Bull will say something like… an observation, for example, about Dorian impressing him some way or another. It’s almost _always_ a positive comment about something Dorian is good at. And normally Bull is more vocal about the things Dorian does that are ridiculous, _not_ impressive!"

"I... would think that would be a good thing, to be complimented," Josephine said.

"It usually is. But Dorian is used to turning inane comments or rudeness around into benefiting him. Wordplay is his favorite pasttime. So our poor Tevinter mage has yet to figure out what to do when Bull compliments him so earnestly. Should he agree, and encourage more? Should he press back, disagreeing with the Qunari?"

"What has he decided?" Josephine begged.

"So far, he's replying with curt agreement. It's endearing, or it would be," Elodie muttered, "if I thought Bull was doing it on purpose.”

“How do you know The Iron Bull is dense with such things?” Josephine asked. “Maybe he is doing it on purpose. The chase can be quite an exciting thing.”

“You could be right. But the way he speaks to Dorian when he's _not_ flirting leads me to believe he’s oblivious. But also because..." Elodie faltered, laughing. "Nevermind."

"What?" Josphine asked, splashing a bit to get closer. "You have to tell me now, you can't just leave it at that."

"Promise not to judge me?"

"I..." Josephine raised an eyebrow. "Of course."

"The other reason I think he's oblivious is because I tried a few lines out on Bull myself, when he first arrived at Haven. And he pretended like he had no idea what I was implying.”

“Elodie!” Josephine looked both aghast and amused.

“I didn’t mean anything by it!” Elodie stuttered. “It felt like good fun, like teasing. Especially with the way Bull talks when he initiates it, right? But he reacted to my flirting by saying something about blood grooves,” she swatted her hand about in the water, sending a few droplets flying as she waved the memory away from her mind’s eye. “Anyway, I still think it’s going to happen, him and Dorian, but I need to pay Varric before I forget.”

“Or before he ropes you into a double or nothing,” Josephine said, grinning over the edge of the water.

After only a few more minutes, Elodie found that she could no longer soak. She wasn’t used to being surrounded by hot water for very long, and after her long journey she was growing light-headed. The night outside past the waterfall was dark, and it looked positively ready for her to fall into it as one would a pile of soft blankets. As if she could sense her friend’s fatigue, Josephine stood up from the water and went back to the boudoir area. She offered Elodie a towel when she followed after, but once again Elodie had packed her own to use.

As Josephine retied a few of her braids, terrycloth wrapped around her body, Elodie pulled on her change of clothes. A set of clean smallclothes, a simple white shift of a shirt, supple beige lambswool breeches, and a belt to go around her waist. Her skin felt aglow, clean and fresh. She inhaled and released a long sigh.

“Better now, is it not?"

Elodie nodded.

"Will you go have dinner?” Josephine asked, pinning a stray curl in place.

“No, I’m not very hungry. I might just retire to my quarters for the night.”

“Don’t let me keep you, then,” the Antivan said with a smile. “I’ll be here a bit longer.”

“Before I forget, could you schedule a meeting in the morning with everyone in the war room? I was hoping it could be before breakfast tomorrow?”

“B-before breakfast? You can sleep in if you like, Elodie, you don’t have to-”

“It’s no trouble for me to get up early. I want to speak to you all as soon as I’m able to.”

She ran her hands over the cool surface of the empty shelf, wishing she could tell Josephine that at least, in this way, she could return to a semblance of normalcy. She could get back immediately into the routines she held at Skyhold before she left. Maybe then every other routine she’d left behind, including walks on the battlements at night with a certain someone, would fall into place as well.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. And if I rest now, dawn is a long way away,” Elodie said, fluffing her hair with her towel. She didn’t know what else to say.

“True,” Josephine said, letting her hands fall away from her temple. “Well. If you’re certain, I’ll let Leliana and Cullen know.”

“I am. And thank you for tonight, Josie.” Elodie smiled fondly at her. “Next time we do this, I promise I’ll have more energy to sit and let rose water soak into our skins.”

“I look forward to it,” the Antivan beamed. With a little wave, Elodie left in much higher spirits.

She didn't intend to go right to sleep. She had told Cullen flat out that she would leave her quarters unlocked for him, had insinuated that she wanted him there specifically. And he had agreed.

_We're both nervous, it seems._

She hoped, should he not find her elsewhere, that he would presume to enter freely. The idea of Cullen surprising her where they had a chance at uninterrupted privacy was just as thrilling as the idea of sleep. He still hadn't kissed her hello, after all. Maybe when he finished his work, he would find the energy to do so. Maybe if they were in an area where they could lock the door, Cullen would be able to let go and give her the welcome home she hoped for. With that small glimmer of hope alight in her breast, Elodie made her way up the staircase that would lead her to the great hall and to her quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to tease you like this ^^ But she's home! And that counts for something, right? The Commander just... has a lot on his mind. He'll come around. Soon, hopefully ;)
> 
> Personally, I don't know how many of you have tried public baths like they have here in Japan, but onsen is the absolute best imo! I love getting a chance to go and sit outside with friends, especially if it's snowing, and just relax in the hot water. First couple times I was nervous, but if you're used to public bathing I think you could get in a tub with a friend and be as blasé as Elodie, haha.
> 
> Behind the curtain a bit-- I totally flirted with both Bull and Blackwall at Haven when I was playing through as Elodie, and was like "eh" on both of their reactions haha. That dumb lecture line kinda sold me for Cullen immediately after those, just in case you couldn't tell at the beginning of this fic XD
> 
> *****Updating announcement-- This fic is part of a series, and I'd love to do the second part as my NaNo project for 2017. Therefore, I'll update Honey Whiskey much more often this week until it's finished. Don't feel rushed!! I want to be able to focus entirely in the month of November and leave you guys with some closure ;) Thank you times a million!!*****


	24. Just Resting Her Eyes

The first thing that Elodie did once she was safely back in her quarters was to fill the kettle up with clean water from the pitcher on her desk. She tucked Leliana's note away as she rearranged the teapot on its tray and made a mental note to thank her Spymaster for sneaking it up to her quarters. Deliberately ignoring the bed and its comforting thrall, she set the kettle over the low flame in the fireplace. Elodie grabbed a couple of logs from the bin by the window, their bark smelling crisp in the slight chill of night that filtered in through her open balcony, and then moved over to stoke the flames into a larger flare. In order to keep busy while she waited for her water to heat, she moved over to the vanity by the bed and took the brush from her pack.

She brushed out her curls, careful to be gentle since they were still wet, and glanced herself over in the mirror. How long had it been since she’d sat herself down in front of a reflective surface? Months, even before the Western Approach. She tended only to use one back home in her aravel when she was about to go on a hunt, and back in Haven she had seemed to avoid looking at herself for weeks on end. Tracking the movements in her reflection, Elodie used to love making sure every curl was pulled taut and out of her face, back when Imara had stopped being able to braid her hair for her.

Now, Elodie did not pull her curls back. She sighed, examining herself with her own tired eyes, and gave her bangs a quick fluff on her forehead.

The bags beneath of her eyes were not yet rivals to the Commander’s; not for lack of trying, though. They were still darker than she was used to. Her skin was aglow from the moisturizing soaps, albeit a bit sun-damaged across the crest of her cheeks and bridge of her nose. Her scar, prominent as ever, bisected her eyebrow and skipped over her eyelid like a stone over still lake water. But even though she was tanned and exhausted, it was still her heart-shaped face, her cheeks full and her brow set in relaxed skepticism. It was the face she had always had, one that looked nothing like her father’s face save for the prominence of her ears at its sides.

_Your mother’s face_ , he’d used to say. They had never spoken much of her beyond that phrase. Elodie had never known her, had always assumed she was from another clan, or perhaps from a nearby city's alienage. Or perhaps she had belonged to their clan and had passed away, and by some strange mercy their Keeper had elected to never mention her by name. That one seemed the least likely of all. She was not still alive, her middle name was Sulahna, and her face mirrored Elodie's: that was all Elodie knew.

How old had she been at the time of her death? Had Elodie surpassed her in years by now? Grimly, Elodie raised her gaze so that she was making eye contact with her reflection, as if to remind herself that for all her appearance, she was not her mother.

Her eyes were a shock of green, as pale as the underbelly of a mint leaf and rimmed with a deep, dirt brown. Intense, as far as stares went, and large. Elodie sighed, setting her hairbrush down with a tiny metallic click on the surface of the vanity. Behind her, the kettle whistled breezily as the water warmed to a rolling boil.

She stood to move the kettle free of the flame, but as she turned away from the mirror the world seemed to shatter into splinters of green and white. Falling glass, sharp against her corneas, and an outstretched hand that did not belong to her father thrust into her field of view. Elodie gasped, sank to her knees, and held out her hand with the anchor. It was an automatic defense, desperate and unthinking.

The air crackled about her hand, flicking in and out as what she could only assume was fade energy flowed freely about her palm. The mark glowed painfully bright, but Elodie regained herself before she could summon any rift of her own within Skyhold’s walls.

When she looked again, there was nothing before her but the whistling kettle and the open balcony window. She was safe. It was only dream residue, a memory of a memory.

She blinked, her heart racing, and as the adrenaline subsided she could feel her breathing begin to quicken. _Calm down, you’re fine_. Glancing at the bracelet, it was purple, and she felt confident that the vision would most likely not return to her. Elodie nodded to herself, slowed her breathing, then stood on shaky feet to move to the kettle as it began to whistle harder.

It was soothing, to ready tea for herself. It wouldn’t keep her awake, and even though a part of her feared that, Elodie had to admit that she was ready to try to settle down for the night. She poured the hot water into the teapot to steep the leaves she’d shaken inside of it, and the room filled with fragrant citrus steam. Elodie inhaled deeply, and then started to peruse her bookshelf while she waited for the tea to steep to perfection.

* * *

Elodie wasn’t sure when she’d drifted off, but she woke up to a warm, knit blanket being draped over her torso and legs. She gave a little groan, shifting further down into the cushions of the couch where she lay prone, but did not open her eyes. She was perfectly comfortable as she was, with the low warmth of the fire radiating over to her along with a slight breeze from the balcony window.

The logs in the hearth popped gently, crakling as flames licked over their underbellies. Beyond the large glass door leading to the balcony, slightly ajar, Elodie could hear the metallic clink of armor settling as the nightwatch changed positions on the battlements beneath her quarters. She could hear the Canticle of Exaltations being sung in hushed tones past the garden, could hear when a few beleaguered voices joined in and seemed to find their peace. Elodie groaned again, louder this time, and shifted so that one of her arms was thrown over her head in a stretch. At her side, taking her teacup and saucer from the little table where she’d rested them, she heard a little sigh of a laugh.

“Cullen?” she asked, rubbing the back of her hand over her eyes as she tried to sit up.

“Shh,” her Commander replied. “I’m here. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Elodie said automatically.

Cullen merely laughed, then set a heavy palm on her shoulder. She sank back down to the pillows at his touch, too tired to think straight. When had he put a pillow behind her head? Had he tucked her in?

“I’m awake,” she said, as if that would help her find the energy to sit up and face him. Blinking in the dim light, she could blearily make out the outline of his face as he knelt by the couch.

“Are you, now?” he asked, his tone permissive and teasing.

Elodie nodded, letting her eyes fall closed again. Heavy. Her eyelids had never been so heavy. The blanket around her was being tucked in further, at least on the side of her body closest to the couch cushions. The other side of the blanket lifted up, and Elodie felt fingers tracing across her abdomen in a gentle caress. She gave a pleased hum, until she realized that Cullen was trying to position her so that he could loosen her belt and slide it off of her hips.

“Lift up for me,” he ordered gently, his voice as quiet as the prayers being sung beneath Elodie’s balcony. She obeyed, lifting her hips so that Cullen could pull the leather about them away,  the metal buckle of her belt caught in his hand. She could feel the blankets being tucked back in around her torso now, and a sudden thought had her opening her eyes with greater force than before.

_Is he going to leave?_

“Commander.”

“Yes, Inquisitor?”

“Are you… did you finish your work for the night?” she asked, the question sounding lame even to her own ears. She could feel them twitch against the pillow in embarrassment, but Cullen gave her a warm smile.

“I did.” He had taken a knee to tuck her in, and Elodie watched as he readjusted on the floor. He settled beside her couch, still managing to look rigid even as he rearranged himself into a cross-legged position. When he was seated comfortably, he sighed and said, “I meant to come by earlier, but I was delayed. I apologize.”

“I’m so glad you came up anyway,” Elodie whispered, reaching out until her left arm dangled over the edge of the couch. It hit his elbow, and he took her weakly flailing fingers with a smile and pressed them to his lips. "Part of me didn't think you would."

“You asked me to. How could I refuse?”

“You could have said no,” she answered. “You can always say no.”

“I realize,” he said. “I didn't want to say no," Cullen added in a whisper.

“Mmm.”

Elodie watched, charmed, as he pressed his lips once more to the backs of her fingers.

“I was actually hoping I would find you asleep,” he said, his tone more bolstered than it had been.

Elodie chuckled.

“Fond of tucking me in, are you?”

“I could grow accustomed to it, yes,” Cullen said, smiling. "In truth, I wanted to see you without staying longer than a moment.”

“Aw,” Elodie frowned, holding his hand weakly in hers. “Why is that?”

“Because I didn’t know how to explain this properly,” Cullen said.

As Elodie watched, he pulled forth a little package from underneath of his mantle. Maybe he had set it by his hip on the floor, or held it in his free hand the entire time without her noticing, but the appearance of the flat red box made Elodie gasp.

“What is it?”

“A gift.”

“For me?”

“Yes,” Cullen said with a laugh. “If you want it. And if it’s not inappropriate of me.”

"Inappropriate to give me a gift?" Elodie repeated, smirking. "Is it going to make me blush?"

"What do you... oh, n-no, nothing like  _that_ ," Cullen stammered. "Maker's breath. I only meant that I did not want to overstep any boundaries you and I have."

"You mean, you don't know if it's too soon for gift-giving between us?"

He nodded, looking incredibly innocent.

"Do you still have your Elodie necklace?" she asked, teasing him.

He softened, bringing his eyes up to hers as his lips curved into a smile of understanding, and that was answer enough for her.

“Not too soon, then." Elodie chewed her lower lip, examining the box from afar. "Can I open it?”

“Are you sure you’re awake enough?” he teased, pulling the box just out of her reach as she pried her fingers from his. She grabbed for it, lunging for him with a suddenness that surprised even herself, and he caught her elbow by her forearm to keep her from sliding completely off the couch and into his lap. She giggled, trying to readjust her center of gravity so that she wouldn't fall. She just ended up shimmying further under the blankets, a gesture that seemed to amuse Cullen even as he pulled the box above his head out of her reach.

“I'm awake enough to know you're being cruel,” she joked, grinning mischievously even as she reached for the box with her other hand. “It is _inappropriate_ to tell me I get a gift and then not hand it over!”

“Is it?” Cullen laughed. “We can't have that, then."

"No, we can't," she insisted. "You are a man of honor, aren't you, Commander?"

"Alright, you've convinced me. Sit up.”

With difficulty, her limbs too unwieldy and her joints too stiff, Elodie managed to shuffle into a position that would allow Cullen to share the couch with her. She patted the cushion at her side, and when he looked up at her in confusion, she patted it harder. Cullen swallowed hard; she could see his Adam’s apple bob with the effort, could see his jaw muscles tense as he shut his mouth resolutely. For a moment she wondered if he would refuse. But then he drew himself onto the couch at her side, shifting his weight to account for where her feet were hidden beneath the knit cover. He settled his body over the blankets while hers remained under them, and when they were both comfortable, he held the box between them.

“I was hoping to give you this as soon as you returned to Skyhold.”

“A homecoming gift?” Elodie asked, drawing her knees up to her chest as Cullen turned the box in his hands. “Should I consider leaving more often, then?”

“I’d rather you didn’t, but we all know that’s out of our hands,” Cullen replied. He had swiveled it so that a little card on the corner was facing Elodie, then he held the box out for her to take. She did so, and was surprised at the heft of it. It was flat, only about the size of both of her hands laid flat side by side, but it weighed a bit more than she expected. She gave the box an experiment shake up and down, gauging the way Cullen’s eyes widened.

“Is this expensive?” she asked.

“Not very, no,” he said.

Elodie was too tired to discern whether or not he was lying. His eyes were bright, his energy renewed at least a touch, but he still looked as sleepy as she felt. Elodie watched as his eyes crinkled at the corners, his amusement evident.

“Read the card, miss,” Cullen insisted. “Spare me having to explain it aloud.”

Elodie’s fingers tugged at the cardstock, pulling it from where it was taped to the corner nearest to her. She unfolded it, unable to hold back a great yawn as she did so. Blinking in the dull light from the fire, Elodie turned her body so that the card would be more visible in the light, effectively leaning on her Commander as she did so. He gave a surprised grunt, as if he didn’t expect her to scoot closer to him on the couch.

Inside the card, in a looping script she’d become familiar with over the last year, was indeed a note. Or instructions. Or a warning. Either way, it was short and Elodie could feel Cullen reading with her over her shoulder as she positioned it higher in the firelight.

_Elodie,_

_Josephine has been holding dinners for dignitaries while you’ve been away, and as Commander of the Inquisition’s forces, I am sometimes required to attend. I cannot derive any pleasure from these required posturings, but one good thing did come of them. Right after you left, I was seated beside Vivienne de Fer, and we spoke for the first time since Haven. She mentioned something offhandedly to the nobles about watching you work on your jewelry-making in the field, and then she showed off a very pretty necklace you made her before Haven fell. She recalled that you struggled rather valiantly to thread together such durable jewelry without the proper tools._

_I hope it’s not too forward of me, but I had these commissioned for you. I worked on finding a lightweight design for them so that they will not hinder you on the road. You will still have room to carry a portable chess board with you, should you care to practice._

_Cullen_

Elodie looked up at the man beside her, confused.

“Open it,” Cullen said quietly, no longer making eye contact with her. He was looking down at the box, his face shrouded in shadow. Elodie could not disobey such a soft request. She readjusted herself, curling her knees underneath of her so that she could face Cullen fully. Then, while she rested the box on her lap, Elodie pulled the lid off with trembling hands.

When the lid came off and the box settled against her knees, at first all she could see was what looked like a pouch of ring velvet. It jangled together like a set of keys when it knocked against itself in the box, metal and light and possibly hollow. When Elodie unfolded the cloth surrounding her gift, she realized that it was a small set of tools.

There was two pairs of pliers, one stubby and one with long, needle-like pincers; a tiny wheel of needles, of various thicknesses; a spool of wire thread; two sets of clamps and one miniature vice; small, precise scissors with long, thin blades; a wirecutter with crystal-sharp edges; and something she didn’t recognize that looked like a short, thin metal stick with a triangular-point nib at its head.

She glanced up at Cullen, in a state of shock, but he only grinned at her. He offered no explanation, and seemed content to merely watch her as she took them in her hands one by one.

They were all surprisingly delicate, like jewelry in a way. Turning them over in her hands, Elodie found they were lightweight but sturdy. She in no way got the impression that they would snap in her fingers, even though they were all about the size of a charchoal vine or a small pencil. Glancing back into the envelope to find instructions, instead Elodie drew out another note.

_You’ll recognize all but one of these tools, I assume. The one that looks like a miniature poker is an enchanted object, so please treat it with caution. I was not particularly happy with its addition to the collection, but Vivienne insisted. She noted that when a mage could helpe you melt metal, you could more easily glue together necklaces that could withhold vigorous movement. At my request, she has put that ability into this tool with_ _strict_ _parameters. It will only melt iron, no other metal. It will also not heat up when pressed to flesh, fabric, or any other material besides iron. However, please,_ _please_ _still be careful with it. I advise wrapping it in some fennec hide before storage, just to be safe._

_Keep it away from Bull to be doubly safe._

_… Only joking, of course._

“After writing you for so long,” Cullen whispered, the fire crackling behind him, “this seemed like the easiest way to explain. Tell me if this is too garish a gift for you to accept.”

“No,” Elodie glanced up at him, her eyes hot. She blinked and send a tear streaking down her cheek, one she immediately swiped away. “No, not at all.”

“Elodie, are you-”

“They’re beautiful,” she said, interrupting his question. She stared down at the tool set, and then picked each one up again to appreciate them further. On each one, there was a glimmering inlaid crystal at the end. Each was in the shape of a star, with a tiny cursive ‘ _ESL_ ’ on the handle. He’d remembered the initial for her middle name, then? Overwhelmed and in some small state of shock, Elodie looked up at Cullen and had to cover a sob.

The noise escaped her before she had a chance to hide it behind the blanket, and as she held the tool box in one hand, Elodie used her implant-free palm to draw the blanket up and over her face in order to hide her shame.

“Elodie,” he said, concerned and amused at once, the tone of voice a parent uses when their child does something adorable out of pitifulness.

She gave a sheepish apology, kept the blanket pulled high, and tried to quell the sudden influx of emotions she knew must be showing on her face. Cullen reached out to her, smoothing his hands down over her shoulders. After a second of hesitance, one she could feel in the way his grip on her forearms tightened almost imperceptibly, Cullen reached out a hand and brought the cover away from Elodie's face. Immediately she held her hand over her mouth and nose, fearing that she would let another noise escape that would embarrass her further.

“Sorry,” she said again, past her fingers.

“No, don’t be,” Cullen replied. “Please. If they’re not the right size, or length, or if they’re unusable, or if this makes you uncomfortable, please tell me-”

“They’re so perfect!” Elodie protested in a gasp. “And I'm not uncomfortable.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, seemingly unconvinced. “Why are you crying, then?”

“These are happy tears,” she clarified. She drew her eyes up to Cullen’s, and she could see that past his clement smile his eyes were dark with worry. She shook her head, laughing past the sudden influx of tears. “I’m sure my being tired doesn’t help, but don’t worry. I’m happy.”

“Oh. Good,” he answered, but he still didn’t sound as if he believed her. In an effort to make him understand, Elodie took a steeling breath and tried to explain.

“I h-haven’t had a set of my own tools since I was a little girl,” Elodie said, making sure to touch each one in turn as she arranged them in a fan within the box. She spoke slowly and deliberately, trying her best to keep her tone steady. “My father liked to indulge me, gave me reasons to make bracelets or necklaces. He would trade regularly with shems, would get them to give me cracked glass or vials of shiny dirt, useless stuff, and then turn around and ask me what I could fashion from it. One time, a smith was getting rid of a pair of rusted pliers, so my dad took them for me. Another time, a seamstress had a pair of scissors that had dulled to the point of unable to even snip hair. My father sharpened them for me, gave me them too.”

Cullen was watching her closely, but Elodie, immersed in the memories, could not bring her eyes to meet his.

“Eventually I had a whole knapsack of tools that I brought with us everywhere. Frightful heavy. Might be why I have back problems now.”

He gave a laugh, a tiny breath, and it encouraged her to carry on in earnest.

“Even so, I went through a phase when he got sick where I wondered if he wasn’t just asking me to make shit in order to keep me busy. I felt like he was encouraging me because I would lose hours at a time in my projects.” Elodie sighed. “For a while, I started to leave my tools in our aravel when we went out together. He never asked me why."

Cullen nodded, as if he understood. Perhaps his parents had done something similar when encouraging him to strive to become a Templar. Elodie gathered herself, regaining where she'd left off.

"But then I saw my father wearing the jewelry I made, even underneath of his layers of blankets and…”

Elodie glanced up, smiling up at the man before her so that she would not shed any further tears at the memory. Cullen's eyes were fixated on hers, wide and gentle, as if he could barely believe she was sharing this with him. Elodie's fingers clenched into fists on her lap and she swiped once more at her cheeks.

“I knew he wasn't just asking me to keep myself busy," she finished. "He really actually liked what I made for him. And so I used those tools he gave me, from then until long after he'd died. Up until the day they broke. And I’ve never had a set of my own since.”

Cullen shifted beside her, drawing his hands down to hold one of hers. With a start, Elodie realized he didn’t have gloves on. She was awake enough now to recognize the sensation. He wasn’t wearing armor on his forearms either, merely the layer of fabric he always held beneath it. The shock of his touch stilled her into silence, her breaths coming faster. As he laced his fingers with hers, bare palm against bare palm, Elodie felt a rush of energy flow through her. She tightened her grip over his, and Cullen gave a satisfied-sounding exhale.

“When did you start making things again after he passed away?”

“It took me a long time. I only started up again in earnest about a year before Deshanna sent me to the Conclave” she replied.

"And then you started again in Redcliffe?"

"To pass the time," Elodie said with a self-deprecating chuckle. She paused, hesitating, then blurted, “I didn’t make anything at all in the Approach. Even though there was so much I could work with, I just... didn't.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm,” she said, shaking her head, her curls falling over her shoulder. “I had no motivation to do anything besides try to fill requisitions, explore, and then write to you and the others when I had a moment to myself.”

“It sounded like you were having a hard time, from the way your letters grew more and more tense,” Cullen said quietly.

“Yeah. If I had had these, though, who knows?” Elodie said, her tone light and playful.

Cullen straightened, almost as if the statement had filled him with pride.

“I thought the same thing, once Vivienne showed me her necklace.” He swallowed hard, then lowered his voice. “I doubt they’ll do much for inspiration, but I thought you might find them useful nonetheless.”

“I don't know, I'm feeling rather inspired,” Elodie murmured.

“Are you sure they’re the correct size?” Cullen inquired, and a thin line formed where his brow knit together in concern. “I can have them altered if need be.”

“Let's double check, shall we?” Elodie held up one of the tools in the hand Cullen was not holding tightly, and the tool’s handle fit snugly into the flesh between her thumb and forefinger. It rested on her knuckle, about the size of a pencil, perfect and light. "See?" she whispered. "Perfect fit."

“Good,” he murmured, his hand tightening over hers.

“Sorry for crying,” Elodie said.

“Don’t apologize for that,” Cullen said, his words soothing even in their low ferocity. She shuddered at his tone, how he sounded almost protective of her in the moment.

“I don’t normally dissolve into tears at the drop of a hat. I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” Elodie confessed, swiping underneath of her cheeks once more to make sure they were dry of the sudden influx of emotion. 

“It was my pleasure. Tears or not,” he replied, giving their joined hands a little shake as if to emphasize the point. “Did you see the stars on the ends?”

“I did.”

“And the initials?”

“Yes. You remembered my middle name. I’m impressed, Commander.”

“I…” he gave a shaky laugh. “I must confess, I do not remember it past _S_.”

“Really!” Elodie giggled, feigning shock.

“Forgive me. Both of ours begin with the same letter, so I could only remember that much.”

“It’s Sulahna,” she said, beaming over at him. “The same as my mother’s middle name.”

“I see. I won’t be able to forget it now,” Cullen said softly, the glow of the fire catching in his curls and backlighting them in a halo of gold about his countenance. Elodie leaned forward, drawn to him, but before she could pull him close she remembered herself. She remembered his discomfort from before, his plea for her to be patient with him, and her heart could barely stand it.

“I-I can’t wait to try them,” she said, untangling her fingers from his to replace the lid on the box. She set it aside on the table behind her, making sure it was stable before pulling her fingers from its red wrapping.

“I’m intrigued to see what you make first.”

“How can I ever repay you?” Elodie asked earnestly, turning back to him and once more grabbing his hand in hers. She brought his knuckles to her lap and rested them on her knees.

“Your satisfaction is payment enough,” Cullen said with a gracious nod.

“Who managed to craft such tools?” Elodie gushed.

“Dagna, if you can believe it."

“Are they… explosive in any way?” Elodie asked, blanching slightly.

Cullen laughed out loud.

“No, I didn’t allow her free reign with them. I hired an artisan from Crestwood to draft up the initial sketches before asking our arcanist to take over under Harritt’s supervision. Baelam kept in swift correspondence with the artisan, and I daresay he’s looking forward to future commissions, should you have any.”

Elodie couldn’t bear to think of anything else. The tools were enough. She shook her head happily, unable to keep voicing the warmth that immersed her. Cullen gave her a shy smile, continuing.

“Vivienne oversaw the enchantments with Dagna, a few spells cast to increase the durability, something about safety precautions with the scissors.”

Elodie smirked. Cullen was speaking as if he didn’t know every detail, playing it off as if he hadn’t meticulously guided the enchanter’s hand in it all. It was cute. Elodie watched him explain further, appreciating the fact that he was actually physically in front of her as he rambled. Catching him off guard, moving before he could pull away, Elodie raised up on her knees and pulled Cullen into a kiss.

His words caught on his lips, a faint moan escaping him as they connected. He was warm, way too warm, as if his skin held embers aglow from within. He kissed her back, faint movements against her roving lips, soft and gentle as she brushed chaste gratitude against his mouth. Elodie grew bolder, softly sucking the edge of Cullen's scar between her teeth, and his breathless noise of surprise was enough to bring her back to her senses.

She pulled away an inch, eyes still closed, and listened to how they both simultaneously gave a sigh of longing.

“Forgive me,” Cullen whispered. Elodie’s eyes blinked open lazily, her confusion evident. Before she could ask him what for, Cullen brought his gaze to hers, distraught. “I should have kissed you as soon as you walked into my office.”

Elodie shook her head, even though she secretly agreed. It was not her place to rush him, to push physical intimacy where he did not seek it as well. Cullen bit his lower lip, dragging it between his teeth as his eyes drifted back down to Elodie’s mouth.

“There are… things we must discuss, you know,” he whispered. "Things that are keeping me from..."

"From indulging?" Elodie offered, using a phrase they'd used before, their code for moving forward.

Cullen gave a soft groan, a noise barely withheld, and then he nodded as if he was at a loss for words.

“These things we must discuss," Elodie said quietly. "Do they pertain to the difficult topic you wrote to me about? In the letter with the dried flower?”

“Y-yes.”

“Ah.” Elodie resisted the urge to dart her tongue out to the corner of her lips, to tease Cullen into action. Instead, she tried to keep her tone neutral and unassuming. “Do you want to talk about them now?”

“Not particularly,” Cullen answered, his tone curt and dry, and Elodie scoffed in amusement. His hand tightened over hers, his fingers catching some of the blanket on her lap, and he shook his head. “No, I mean, I do. But right now would be…”

He trailed off, and Elodie brought her other palm to his forehead, his temple, then to his cheek. He leaned into her touch, his eyes falling shut, as if once more she had soothed him of a great pain with her fingertips alone. He was still feverish, but less so, and Elodie knew instinctively that he would not admit to her even now that he was straining his health to the breaking point. Gently, she slid her fingers back into his curls, drawing his forehead down so that she could plant a kiss between his brows.

She soothed the lines of his forehead until the tension in his muscles relaxed. She planted kiss after tiny kiss against his hairline, reveling in the scent of lightly spiced violets. She wished she could, through the power of her touch alone, convey to him that she understood. To speak of difficult things now would take time, energy, and effort; all of which had been exhausted between the two of them for the day.

He seemed not to have a need for her to speak. With a low groan, Cullen pulled Elodie flush against his chest and dipped his head back down to taste her once more. It was exploratory, hesitant, almost an apology of a kiss. Pleasure slid from her chest where it met with his armor down to her hips as she arched into his kiss, a desperate slide of nerves, so sweet that Elodie let loose a keening moan. She could feel Cullen shudder beneath her fingertips, could feel his kiss redouble in its intensity as he grazed his canines across the fullness of her lower lip, and it sent her into a frenzy. She grabbed for him, tugging him hard against her, and his hands found their place at her shoulders and waist to draw her close. He matched her noises with a growl of his own, and Elodie was vividly reminded of the dream she'd had before returning home. She caught Cullen's curls in her fist as he deepened the kiss, his tongue dancing about hers with a familiar, playful ease. Elodie didn't know who broke the kiss first, didn't realize they were both disconnected until the cool air from the balcony danced across her parted lips and made her shiver.

They were frozen, lips kiss-bitten and pink, both hesitant and longing and fully aware that they could go further should they so choose.

“H-how about tomorrow?” she whispered, a question for him.

He paused, hesitating, then nodded.

“Tomorrow.”

“I can stop by your office."

"I'd be much obliged."

"I should... let you get to bed, right?” Elodie brushed her lips across his brow, over to his temple.

He groaned in reply.

“Unless you’d like to take my place on the couch here?” she suggested, knowing he would not take up her offer of the bed itself.

He laughed, a warm growl of a noise as he nuzzled into her neck. Elodie arched into him, feeling frail and small against the plate of metal he wore about his person. His arms stayed at her side, not leaving her but not pulling her closer either, and she held him with what she hoped was warm reassurance. She brought her fingers back to his temple, stroking a light caress down the side of his jaw with her thumb. After a few breathless heartbeats, he pulled away to face her with straightened shoulders, and her hand fell away from his cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll find _you_ this time,” Elodie promised, smiling. Cullen seemed to melt at that, relief relaxing his shoulders, but before Elodie could move to kiss him again he had stood up from the couch.

“Sleep well, Inquisitor,” he said, pausing at the top step to wish her goodnight. His hand dragged against his neck, his weight balanced on one hip. He looked hesitant, as if he were holding back from saying something more.

Elodie gave him a little wave, settling back into the cushions of the couch with a contented sigh. Cullen bowed, but when he straightened Elodie could very clearly make out a smile on the edge of his lips. With the sound of his footsteps fading away as he left her quarters, she snuggled down into the blanket and began to daydream about what she could make with her newly commissioned tool set. Eventually, when her mind was too tired to run through projects, Elodie succumbed to heady sleep that smelled faintly of warm citrus tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an absolute sucker for sick-fic, where a character gets taken care of and comforted. But when both your characters are sick and sleepy, what do you do? You make them kiss by a fire and then go to bed, that's what!
> 
> Also, I'm not sure if I ever described Elodie in great detail, but I'm not sure she ever needed it. I like the idea that you can envision her as you like. Went into a few specifics in this chapter, hopefully not too much.
> 
> Originally, this scene was gonna play out way differently, but since I'm suffering from a headcold today I empathized much more with Cullen and what he's going through. He's trying so hard!! So I gave him a reprieve, and he gave Elodie something to do with her time away. I feel like partially because he was worried about how plaintive and curt her letters had become, and partially because he was impressed by the work she'd done on Viv's necklace.
> 
> You better believe that he blushed like a tomato when Madame de Fer turned to him and asked if Elodie had made anything special for him. Do you think he admitted it, or kept their Amulet a secret? ;) Up to you!


	25. Lazy Morning Reflections

The next morning, Elodie was awake before the dawn. She had dreamed something beautiful and filmy and vague for once, instead of the vivid imagery her mind had conjured for her since she had allied with the Templars at Therinfal. Last night, she had been afraid that the vision of a hand that flashed before her eyes had signaled something worse was coming, but for now it had not. She was either growing out of the dreams themselves, or was not remembering them upon waking. Either way, Elodie was grateful.

As she grew gradually aware of her surroundings, the gentle memory of walking in her dream stayed at the edge of her vision. She had been in an orange grove. She had been searching for someone in an orange grove in the summer, and she had been happy. When Elodie blinked her eyes free of sleep, reacquainting herself with the ceiling of her quarters, the only thing that remained permanently of the dream was the sense of peace and the smell of citrus peels. With a small groan, she rolled up out of the knit blanket Cullen had tucked her in with the night before.

She hadn’t moved once, so deeply had she slept, and she could feel it like a rusty heaviness in her joints as she stretched. The morning air was chilly and brisk, the last remnants of spring on the air of the Frostbacks. Gathering up the knit cover and wrapping it about herself like a cloak, Elodie gradually forced herself to a seated position on the couch. She shoved her curls to the side and reveled in the loose-limbed happiness of getting to wake up on her own terms.

Waking up on the road was always an immediate gut reaction for Elodie. She and her companions would move with the dawn, either because they were called out to change watch or because they were just finished with it. Breakfast, if they were lucky, was on shifts; if Varric, Dorian, or Cassandra were with her, Elodie deferred all of her cooking duties to them. They were better suited for it, with much tastier creations and quicker prep time than her, and in thanks she would organize their bedrolls and items for them as they prepared meals. Because of the necessity to get onto the road as quickly as possible, a lengthy process for getting moving was not an option.

Elodie was lucky. She had always been a morning person, rising easily as soon as light kissed her eyelids with little to no grogginess. She had learned that Sera, Blackwall, and Solas all preferred sleeping as long as possible… and with Sera she had learned that the hard way. She had tried to wake the city elf by splashing her with cold water on their first excursion to the Fallow Mire. Elodie still sported a white half-moon scar from where the everite pauldron Sera had thrown had connected with her shin.

In spite of this instinct to rise with the sun, or maybe because of it, Elodie took advantage of days like this where she had nowhere special to be. She knew she was expected down in the war room for a council meeting and debriefing, but there was time for that yet. She could stretch in peace, rolling the tension from her shoulders and neck. She could set her bare feet on the rug gingerly, flexing her toes through the shorn carpeting. She could keep her eyes closed as she breathed in the smells of the morning and tried to cling the remnants of her dream.

But she could hardly ignore the way the balcony door, however slight the opening, was letting in a draft. Holding the cover closed tightly at her neck, Elodie stood up and padded across the room to the fireplace. As she stoked the flames, her ears pricked at a noise outside. She paused in striking the flint into the tinder and walked over to the balcony opposite where she had fallen asleep.

Stepping onto the cold stone just outside the balcony door, Elodie hugged the cover tighter about her shoulders and glanced out past the garden into the courtyard. She realized with a start that torches were liberally lit across the yard, brightening the area in which Inquisition troops were running drills in their casuals before the sun rose.

The soldiers ran back and forth, then paused to lunge down and touch the dirt by the stone steps before heading back to the armory. They did this again and again as their officers called out times. Maybe these were regular warm-up drills, but Elodie could not recall seeing them the last time she was at Skyhold for an extended period. The recruits disappeared from her sight by the armory but she could hear them call out as they knocked against something hard, possibly training dummies, before returning to where she could see them.

It was a necessary thing, to drill such as this, she reasoned. When the recruits weren’t marching, fighting, or traveling, a strict exercise regimen would keep them sharp. Elodie was about to move back inside when a gentle breeze carried a shout over across the garden. One voice above the rest, one that she recognized. The sound was a bit muffled, but if Elodie cocked her ear just so she could make out Cullen’s voice over the morning air.

“Attention!”

There was a shuffle, some rebounding calls as the officers who had been running the drill seemed to corral the troops together in formation. There were a few coughs, throats clearing of the pinpricks that morning runs always seemed to bring, and Elodie found herself leaning on the stony balcony rail when Cullen’s voice rang out a second time.

“As promised, today’s training session will be minimal, seeing as the Inquisitor has just returned.”

A brief pause, then the sound of muffled giggles.

“You there,” Cullen called, his voice no-nonsense. “Laps until I say stop. Now.”

Some of them clapped and chuckled louder, and Elodie saw one man shuffle in a jog, head down, towards the armory. She wondered vaguely what he’d said to warrant the punishment. It had been too low for her to catch, as far away as she was.

“Anyone else?” the Commander asked. Nobody answered. “Good. Now then, new recruits! I want you to pair up, form two lines, and practice a fighting stance into a lunge and parry. Lysette, you’re in charge. Those of you who have prior military training, do your best to partner with someone green. Do not be lenient with your critiques. Have at it, and if you’re lucky we can finish before the cooks have set out the best of the sweet rolls for breakfast.”

A chorus of shouts from very young voices made Elodie smile. The morning was warming as the sun began to lighten the world, just enough for her to let the cover drop away from her shoulders. She shifted in the breeze that wafted up the pleasant aroma of cedar and ivy from the garden below her, relishing the lack of sand. As she peered out over the edge of her balcony, leaning forward, Cullen came into view in the sunlight and drew the recruits who had been warming up over to his side.

Elodie rested her forearms on the balcony railing, watching as the dawn kissed Cullen’s skin. For once, he was without his armor. He struck her as trimmer, almost lithe, and she wished she was closer. His white tunic was open at the throat, its ties moving lazily in the breeze as he motioned to recruits just what he wanted them to do. He was gorgeous. Immediately, Elodie glanced down at her wrist.

Purple. This Cullen was real.

“Thank the Maker,” she breathed, and then lifted her gaze back to the Commander.

“Alright recruits lined up beind Calienne, Hames, and Jondelle: I want you to form a circle. This morning we’ll be sparring,” Cullen said, his posture suffused with confident ease.

He was wearing what the recruits were wearing: a white cotton shirt, tanned breeches, simple leather gauntlets tied over his forearms and protective braces on both knees. The knee he would put forward in his fighting stance bore a larger shinguard, buckled over his trouser leg and boot.

“Pair by pair, we’ll have two of you get in the ring and have at it,” he explained, “and we’ll be giving you critiques as we go. We’ll use the practice swords with lighter hefts for now, seeing as it’s an easy day with no armor, but if you don’t use your shields to your advantage, I will take them away and have you rely on dodging. Are we clear?”

A chorus of ‘aye ser’s rang out across the courtyard, punctuating the steadily growing cacophony of drill shouts from Lysette and subsequent grunting noises from the newest recruits.

“Good. Brendon and I will demonstrate before I leave you to it. I want you to note the angle of our knees and the position of our feet, just like he showed you last time.”

Elodie felt her jaw clench of its own volition. Damn, she wished her eyes were as good as her ears. She could barely make out Cullen’s form from up here. He was stretching, moving his shoulders back in tight circles, and then picking up a light practice sword. Immediately, Elodie was reminded of the first time she met him.

It was almost a year ago, wasn’t it? When she’d fallen from the Breach? She had been so scared. Terrified. Speechless. She’d looked up at Cassandra with tear-soaked eyes, unable to do more than confess that she didn’t know where she was or why she hurt. At the time, she didn’t even know how to say her own name.

But then there was green everywhere, and that burning splintering in her flesh that seemed to poke at each of her heartbeats, and Cassandra had suddenly become welcome company. She had unshackled Elodie and showed her the monstrosity they were to overcome. Elodie had been left feeling like the world was closing in around her, her vision tunneling until all she could see was the Breach itself.

But Cassandra had anchored her. When they were fighting, she had let Elodie keep her bow and arrow, had dragged her forward, had explained their collective grief. And then, Cassandra had trusted Elodie to fight. Upon seeing actual people fighting, something inside Elodie had spurred her forward, the same instincts she used on a hunt. She had jumped to the forefront and broken free from her fear. She’d been confronted with Solas, who’d held her wrist in his hand and told her she could do this; Varric, who wore a smile, somehow, as if he could barely believe he was living through such a story; Leliana, with her back straight against Roderick’s onslaught of questions and accusations, her eyes sharp and grief-focused.

And then there had been Cullen, with his sword and shield held high as they joined him in the charge with the soldiers.

Elodie had seen him fighting off a rage demon from picking off one of his felled men. She’d seen his glare, the way he had lifted his shield in defiance, and she had immediately jumped down even though Cassandra had yelled for her to wait. Elodie had known that her arrows would hit hard and true, and she’d trusted this stranger not to leap in front of them. She’d called out and then shot a volley.

After the first one hit, Cullen had realized he was getting support from behind and changed his stance, lowering it, cutting at the grounded points on the demon as Elodie pierced from above. But he hadn’t had to look back at her; she remembered the way he had instinctively moved, and had known in that moment that they shared a spirit that could not be taught.

Now, in the courtyard, the former-Templar lunged down low again, knocking against Brendon’s leg. It was a harsh blow that Brendon was too slow to block, one that Cullen immediately danced back from with his shield slightly angled. Elodie could see Brendon visibly stagger, the protective leathers on his shin doing little to nothing for the bruise that would form there. She snorted to herself. He should have been faster. Cullen was known for his quick strikes, his ability to see an opening and move in.

And after his striking had finished, back at the Temple of Sacred Ashes? What had Cullen said to Elodie, out on the field when they had first met? Cassandra had introduced him. He had nodded at her. Elodie had told him she would try to help, and he had gruffly voiced something about the Maker watching over her.

But she couldn’t remember exactly. She had been dripping with adrenaline, unable to focus, and perhaps he had been the same.

Cullen grunted with his next lunge in the courtyard, this time pulling backwards out of Brendon’s reach to show the recruits how he wanted them to dodge. He brought his shield down onto the other man’s elbow, knocking it out of the way in a parry. Cullen’s feet moved quickly and artfully beyond Brendon’s steps so that he could get into an opening from the man’s side. Another blow from Cullen’s pommel, this one much more restrained since they wore no chestplates, connected. At the semblance of the hit, the two men stopped, stepped backwards facing one another, and bowed to signal the end of the example.

“Alright, who can tell me what they saw?” Cullen called out, slightly out of breath. Elodie flushed, thinking of what she had seen in him, both now and when she had first met him.

At first, she’d seen strength and anger inside of Cullen. Initially, at Haven, she had wondered why someone so militaristic had been brought in as an advisor. Back then, Cassandra had introduced her, and Elodie had been so shy, so worried that she would make a horrid impression. She’d been around shemlen before, but never had any of them saved her life before. The debt she owed them seemed to weigh down her every sentence, even when her words were punctuated with confusion or frustration. Had her Keeper overheard such a tone, Elodie would most likely have been rebuked. But Deshanna was not there; it had only been the Seeker, the Spymaster, the Diplomat, and the Commander. And Cullen had intimidated her the most out of them all. He’d seemed out of place compared to the women around him: he’d seemed closed-off, serious, and distant even as he smiled at her. As if he was not present, but still mentally on the battlefield, trying to run through every possibility before he spoke aloud.

Elodie had thought to herself that she was a bother to him, and had avoided him at first.

But then she had seen him speaking with a Chantry Sister. Cullen had asked her if she would sing Benedictions for the youngest refugees that had come late that night. The Sister had touched Cullen's pauldron and agreed if he would come to the service. Elodie had slunk back, watching, too afraid to ask if she could go as well.

After that, Elodie had passed by the room he’d shared with the other two advisors and caught Cullen reading in an armchair while Josephine hemmed one of her silk ties. Josephine had been humming gently to herself, and Elodie had seen Cullen’s knee bouncing lightly to the rhythm of her song.

Weeks later, she had overheard Cullen speaking with Flissa, asking her if she needed anything to help her better facilitate a relaxing atmosphere in her tavern. When Flissa had begun stammering, saying that she didn’t want to be a burden, Cullen had softened his tone and told her that he would send Cassandra by with the Herald, and if Flissa had thought of anything by that time, to please let the Seeker know.

Before she had left for Therinfal, Elodie had caught Cullen outside after the troops had retired for the night, just standing at the edge of the lake and overlooking Haven’s twilight sky. He had looked lonely, but at peace. And she had wanted to go to him, even then, to ask him what was on his mind.

As their time together lengthened, she had begun to watch him more closely. When they spoke at the war table, Elodie had seen Cullen’s anger directed towards the Chantry, towards inactivity, towards stupid suggestions… but never personally towards the people at either side of him. Whether or not he agreed with the group, he respected them. That was clear.

She had tested the waters and talked to him more and more. In turn, Cullen had smiled at Elodie, agreed to do whatever she said as soon as she said it, and laughed whenever she bit out a dry joke at Chancellor Roderick’s expense. Even when he was vouching heavily for the Templars and disagreeing with Leliana’s push for the Redcliffe mages, it was not anger with which his voice cracked. It was edged urgency, for both an Order he had respected and a life he had left behind. This urgency, especially when she was faced with so many choices that seemed to favor the mages, was what spurred Elodie to even visit Therinfal to begin with.

She had never expected that decision to impact her how it had. She had never expected the nightmares, the trauma, or the dream bodyguard her subconscious had assigned her. And when Cullen had found her during the night underneath of the stars, when he’d coaxed out her confessions and worries and listened to them as patiently as one would a soothing melody, she had never expected that either.

During their starlit talks, Cullen had confessed he’d been worried that Elodie feared him. Had he been feared before? Being a Templar, had he gotten used to existing within a constant state of hyper-suspicion of mages… and had he gotten used to being looked at with suspicion as well? Had he gotten used to being distant not out of pride, but out of necessity?

Elodie couldn’t rightly say. Throughout their friendship, they had grown closer, of course. He had left her notes, given her advice, assuaged her fears, and supported her decisions. But he was slow to open up to her about personal matters, for as much as she pried and questioned him. She still didn’t know very much about Cullen, even though she wanted to. Even though it seemed like he wanted her to.

Elodie stepped back from the ledge and back from the influx of memories, gathering her blanket and moving once again to the fireplace. She left the balcony window open, listening as Cullen began to direct the dawn exercises with more vigor. With the combination of spring air and warm flames kissing her collarbone, Elodie felt absurdly exposed and comfortable at the same time. A contradiction.

As she stoked the fire and began to get dressed for the day, she wondered absently if Cullen would allow her to join the drills tomorrow, or possibly the next day. The Commander had never taken her up on her offer to give her a lecture, but maybe he would take her up on an offer to hone her hand-to-hand combat. Elodie pulled out a loose, gauzy tunic from her drawers as the fire began to burn brighter in the hearth at her back. Holding the material up to the light, she found herself smiling vaguely at the image of Cullen repositioning her arms and forcing her stance wider. Even though nobody could see her, she scrunched her eyes shut in shyness and gave a nervous laugh.

Well. It was worth asking, anyway. She would bring it up after the war council, she decided, and she shut the drawer of clothes resolutely so that she could begin her day in earnest. And even though the breeze remained brisk, Elodie left her balcony door open just a crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel bad noticing it, but I can't not tell you guys haha.
> 
> This kind of reminds me of how some TV shows will have a "recap" episode before they get into the meat of a finale, you know? Where it clips together moments from the season so you feel All The Things in one go? I didn't intend this, I swear haha. I had meant this to be a reflection on the relationship y'all didn't get to see before the crushing started, but now that I see it as one of those episodes, I can't unsee it XD
> 
> Hope you enjoyed regardless <3 I know it's shorter! Here's to more in a few days!


	26. Little Birdies

The morning felt like a sigh once Elodie got moving, a relaxation of muscles in the wake of upset. Elodie knew that escaping the Approach did not mean she was finished with the blighted cliffs, but she could take a breather to recover before she returned to them. She therefore kept her clothes light and breezy, foregoing anything that felt remotely like armor in favor of shirts more comfortable. It had been ages since she had layered herself in loose-fitting softness, months since she had left off slinging her bow across her back. It was such a welcome change that Elodie could hardly stand it.

She rolled up the long sleeves of the tunic she'd decided on, tied its lacings all the way down the front, and slung her belt loose and low around her hips. She found soft breeches, wrinkled with wear and cut at the calf, that she tugged on happily over her thighs. She decided to forego boots in lieu of bare feet, and that change alone felt so drastically reminiscent of her home in the Free Marches that Elodie could almost smell the pines lining her clan's encampment. Elodie made sure that Cullen’s gift to her was stashed in an old pouch that she normally used to hold folded schematics, tied over her right hip. She was strangely unwilling to part with the tools, now that she’d confessed how long it had been since she’d owned a set of her own. With quick fingers, she braided her hair loosely to one side, and then practically danced down the steps to the great hall.

It was dewy and warming up outside as the sun rose, and so on a whim Elodie took her morning tea in the garden. Looking around at the herbs they could now plant thanks to her obsessive seed collecting, Elodie took in a deep breath of royal elfroot and arbor blessing and felt utterly at ease. She watched Chantry Sisters milling about, quietly reciting morning devotionals with other early risers. One door across from the gazebo led to a candlelit room with a beautiful statue of Andraste within, and she could hear Mother Giselle within it reciting the chant of Transfigurations. Perhaps that was where the prayers had originated from the night before, as well? A slight breeze rustled a lavender plant to Elodie’s left, and sunshine began to trickle across the shingles on the roof lining the garden, casting brightness within it.

“Inquisitor.”

Elodie raised an eyebrow at the intrusion, then uncrossed her legs so that she could stand and reach out to shake hands with the man before her.

“Hawke. It's good to see you.”

“Likewise. You’re up rather early, though, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice quiet even though there was nobody around to disturb in the garden.

“I like weather like this,” Elodie said, offering him the chair opposite her as she sat. He took it, facing out towards the garden with her. “I figured I would take full advantage of the garden and the weather. I haven’t seen anything this lush in weeks.”

“I did the exact same thing when I got back,” Hawke said with a smile. “Coming back to a place such as this after the Approach felt unreal.”

“Did you and Varric… get a chance to talk, after you came back to Skyhold?” Elodie attempted, not sure what would be too personal a question at the moment. She was thinking of Varric's letter to her, of the hints therein to what Kirkwall's Champion was up to in her absence. Hawke shot her a heavy-lidded glance from the side of his eye.

“We did. A lot. I have an inkling we’ll come back to the same topics before we set back out, too.”

“Ugh,” she muttered, then immediately moved to apologize. Hawke, however, merely laughed.

“No, it is very _ugh_. You’re right. But I can't blame him for not letting it lie.”

Elodie settled back into her chair, relieved. She was not looking forward to the war table debates before setting back out on such a large endeavor, and she imagined Hawke was tired of hearing about it as well.

“He mentions you fondly, you know,” Hawke said softly, and Elodie turned back to him as a breeze pulled one of her tresses loose from its plait. “He isn’t one to do that lightly.”

Hawke turned to pin Elodie with a stare, and for a moment she couldn’t get a read on whether or not he was upset by this. She thought back to Varric's letter to her, the hint within it that Cullen and Hawke had mended whatever bad blood had lain between them from Kirkwall. Elodie debated asking Hawke about this, but decided to let the matter drop. She'd bring it up another time.

“I’m fond of Varric too,” she replied. “He’s been a great support when I feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

“He’s good at that,” Hawke answered, softening just a little. Still, he seemed tense.

“What’s on your mind?” Elodie asked plainly, hoping the man across from her could tell she meant well. She held his stare, even when a breeze pulled her bangs down in front of one of her eyes.

“I have a serious favor to ask of you, if I may.”

“What is it?”

“If things get bad at Adamant- which they will, no offense,” Hawke said dryly.

“None taken.”

“Then I want you to promise me that you’ll take care of Varric for me.”

"What do you mean?" Elodie asked, her anxiety flaring momentarily.

"I mean, should something happen to me, Elodie."

“Come on, Hawke,” she answered shakily, thrown by the use of her given name as opposed to her title. “That won’t be necessary. You're with me, you're going to be fine.”

“Please,” Hawke whispered, voice barely audible above the canticles being recited beyond them. Elodie stilled, unable to read the man’s harried expression. He took a shuddering breath. “If you have any trust left to dole out on some random joker you've only ever heard about in some dwarf's fairy tales," Elodie scoffed, but Hawke continued on, "promise me that you will take care of Varric should anything happen.”

She paused, glancing over Hawke’s furs and down his metal plated chest to where he was holding both hands together. His knuckles were white, his hands clutching themselves tight. He was worried, seeking assurance where he could. Elodie set her jaw.

“I promise. For you, Hawke, and for him.”

Hawke visibly relaxed back into his chair, his eyes clouded for a moment with an expression of grief. He sniffed hard, rubbing a hand over his beard, and then nodded at her.

“Thank you.”

"You don't have to thank me," Elodie stated. "He's been there for me since the beginning. It's the least I can do, and I would do it regardless of whether you and I are on good terms." She paused, looked over at the man she barely knew, and softened her tone. "But I'm glad we are, for what it's worth."

"Right," Hawke said, sounding as if he were trying to recenter himself. He cleared his throat.

“Can I ask why you brought it up this morning, of all mornings?” Elodie ventured. “We aren't going to push the siege until we hear back from Leliana's agents in the field. For now, everything's dark. So why now, instead of later?”

“I don't really know, to tell you the truth. It’s just a feeling I’ve got, that things are going to take a turn for the worst at any moment. Varric keeps calling me pessimistic, keeps telling me I'm being ridiculous," Hawke smiled, a vaguely menacing expression. "And he's probably right, but this feeling… it’s somehow _more_. If that makes any sense.”

“It does.”

She did not say it, but her realistic dreams felt like a similar, ominous force building within herself. As if her subconscious was telling her that this had all been too easy so far, even though Elodie knew that it had been a struggle every step of the way. Still, she couldn't shake the feel that things were about to take a turn for the worse. It made sense that Hawke had similar premonitions, gut feelings telling him to be wary. It was probably how he'd survived all that he had, if even half of Varric's tales were to be believed.

“I’m glad we could talk like this,” Elodie said, hoping she was assuaging his fears rather than adding to them. “But I'm going to do my best to make sure nothing happens to you. You know that, right?”

“I do,” Hawke said, a faint smile ghosting over his features for a fraction of a second.

"You didn't answer me before. Thought I should reiterate just for clarity."

“You know, Inquisitor, it’s not like I haven’t been in worse predicaments than this," Hawke said with a smile. "I’m going to be working just as hard to make sure nothing happens to you either.”

“Watch my back half as well as you do Varric’s, and we’ll be golden,” Elodie teased.

“Don’t force me to listen to your manuscript while we travel, and I’ll watch it twice as well,” Hawke replied.

They laughed together, for what felt like the first time, and Elodie flagged down a passing maid she knew worked in the kitchens. She'd seen the girl talking to Cole in passing, and she seemed kind if not a bit young.

“Excuse me, miss?"

The girl stepped over, curtsying with a tiny, "Yes, your Worship."

"Could you bring us another clean teacup, if you’re not busy?” Elodie asked, trying not to blush at the moniker. For some reason it felt like too much when there was an actual hero sitting by her side. Someone who had done tangible deeds of greatness, beyond falling out of a hole in the sky and being put in charge of a standing army.

The maid bowed and was off before Elodie realized she hadn’t asked Hawke if he would join her. When she turned to the man at her side, however, he was regarding her with knowing eyes. Nothing needed to be said, and he made no move to leave. They both relaxed back into their chairs facing the garden, content for the moment to simply be out of the sand but back in one another's company.

When the second teacup came, Elodie poured Hawke a bit of the citrus tea she'd brewed and trained him with a look. She was curious. This man was present in so many of Varric's stories, was well known throughout Ferelden and most likely Orlais. He had been there when the Chantry had exploded, been there at the catalysts that led up to their current predicament. And yet he seemed so... human. She knew of his mannerisms, thanks to their mutual friendship with a certain talkative dwarf. She had heard tell of the way he could sew and embroider well, a fact she had not believed until she saw how delicately Garrett Hawke held his fingers. She knew that he was very fond of animals, always going out of his way to make friends with even the most feral of beasts. Elodie had even heard about how he had wooed a certain elf in his party by fashioning her a flower crown made from her favorite blossoms.

Hawke pretended not to notice her staring and sipped gingerly at the blend tea. When Elodie didn't let up, he shot her a sideways glance and raised an eyebrow.

"Do I have something in my beard?"

"N-no, nothing," she said, trying not to look found out. "It's just that... well, Varric has told me about you."

"Who  _hasn't_ Varric told about me?"

"No," Elodie chuckled. "I mean, we talked about some things that I think you and I have in common. Kind of."

"Such as?"

"Such as your..." _lover? friend? paramour?_ "Partner."

"Ah," Hawke replied, and he seemed to relax at the subject. It was as if he had expected something much worse.

"She's Dalish, right?"

"She is." Hawke set his teacup down in the saucer, his large hands surprisingly graceful even in this gesture. Elodie watched him spin the teacup around by its handle, like he was admiring the floral design around its rim instead of stalling for time. When he glanced back up at her, his eyes held a mixture of pride and loss. "Merrill, of the clan Sabrae."

"Merrill," Elodie repeated. "What's she like?"

"She has rather large eyes, a strong sense of right and wrong, and a sweet lilt to her voice. She can ask the silliest things, but she's extremely passionate and not to be underestimated."

"Where is she now?"

"Still back in Kirkwall, I believe," he said, his eyes once more finding his teacup. 

"Do you write to her?"

"Every day."

"Did you meet her clan before you parted ways?" Elodie asked.

"Yes," Hawke said, his face breaking into a reluctant grimace. "I met a few of the Sabraes, anyhow, and not on the best terms. They seemed rather unimpressed with me. Merrill said it was the beard."

"How did she introduce you?"

"Very quickly," Hawke replied. "Why the sudden curiosity? Does your clan feel a certain way about you being involved with a human?"

Elodie's jaw clenched shut, the thought having not occurred to her until this very moment. She shrugged, lifting her teacup to her lips with shaky hands.

"You..." Hawke shifted, his leather armor creaking a bit. "You don't mind me commenting on this, do you? If it is a step too far, I apologize."

"No, no!" Elodie set her teacup down a bit too sharply, the ceramic ringing out clear as a bell and startling her into flinching. She shook her head and set her saucer down on the table between them. "By all means. Comment away. After all, I asked you first about your relationship."

"I see. You're certain?"

"Positive," Elodie bit out, suddenly reminded of the history Varric had implied that Hawke and Cullen had together.

She went cold, wondering if this was the time or the place to ask about such a thing. She had wanted to speak with Varric about it first and foremost, had planned to try to ply information from the dwarf with the promise of banning all talk of girdles from Skyhold. But Hawke seemed content to open up to her now, and with their relationship shaky and barely formed, Elodie did not want to backstep away from the conversation.

Plus, she was morbidly curious.

"So," she said, trying to segue into it. The words, however, did not come to her, and she ended up blurting, "What do you think of him?"

"Of your Commander?" Hawke asked, his voice gentle, as if he did not want to embarrass her.

Elodie blushed anyway, and merely nodded. She looked out into the garden, trying to will her skin to cool itself in the balmy spring air.

"I think that he's changed," Hawke said.

"Changed... how?"

"I knew him from his days at Kirkwall, when he was still a Knight-Captain in the Order. I knew him when he embodied being a Templar above everything else, when that was his singular priority."

"Was he much different, back then?" Elodie asked, turning in her seat to face Hawke once more. "What was he like as a Templar?"

"He..." Hawke paused, twisting his teacup by its handle once more. "He was always honorable, I'll say that. He served with a blind loyalty that, had it been nurtured by someone just and compassionate, would have served him well and given him peace. But underneath of Meredith, the parts of him that were still damaged from his experience at Kinloch were only damaged further. He did not find a refuge from such wounds in Kirkwall."

"Oh."

"If it comforts you, I am quite sure he's found solace here within the Inquisition."

Elodie paused, realizing with a sinking feeling that she knew very little of what had transpired at Kinloch. When she had been in Haven, she'd asked Cullen about his experiences as a Templar, and he had mentioned the fall of a circle and then his subsequent transference to Kirkwall, but she had not known the history of it. She had read a bit about it, spoken of Varric and Cassandra about it, but still did not _know_. With the careful way Hawke was stepping around his words, the kind way his eyes were searching her features to gauge her response, Elodie knew this was not a thing to be taken lightly.

Perhaps it was not a thing to discuss with anyone except for Cullen himself. Even so, she continued onward.

"Did..." Elodie cleared her throat, tried again. "Did you two know each other well in Kirkwall?"

Hawke burst out with a dry laugh, causing Elodie to flinch again. Maker, she was jumpy this morning. He reached out, touching a calloused hand to her forearm to make sure she was alright.

"Sorry," he murmured, patting her bare skin. Elodie relaxed at the touch, surprised at his boldness. It was a friendly gesture, one that she treasured. Hawke sat back again, took a sip of tea, then continued, "We knew _of_ one another, and I helped him on occasion, but we were definitely not friends. Cullen and I disagreed about a few things in Kirkwall, but for the most part we respected one another at the same time."

"For the most part?"

"There were some stances on which Knight-Captain Rutherford took a hard view, stances on which he would not budge. And I heavily disagreed with him."

Elodie's eyes widened as realization hit her.

"You... you're a mage."

"Yes," Hawke said, inclining his head. "I am. As was my younger sister."

"You were in Kirkwall with Cullen."

"Yes?"

"Then..." Elodie recalled a conversation she had had with Cullen, when she was vaguely tipsy and extremely warm with snow swirling all around them. Cullen had touched her scar and tried to guess how she had gotten it. And he had gotten his scar from-

"I hope he didn't tell you anything too damning about me," Hawke said gently, bringing his tea up to take a long sip.

"Hawke, did you punch Cullen in the mouth?"

The man choked on his tea.

Elodie stayed sitting there, fixated, the puzzle pieces of Cullen's past slowly aligning before her very eyes as Garrett Hawke sputtered and coughed into his hand until his throat cleared. When he finally regained his voice, Hawke turned to her with a look of wry amusement.

"Did he tell you that one, or shall I?"

"Andraste's arse, you really punched him!"

"I did. It was a bit of a reflex, in my defense."

Elodie licked her lower lip, unsure if she should laugh or scold the man before her. She felt as if she wasn't grasping the full picture, as if something was eluding her.

"Look," Hawke had a grin on his face, the look of a man who knew he'd done wrong but had already apologized for it and now could find the humor in it. "Cullen and I have talked since then and put it behind us."

"Did you even take your gauntlet off before you hit him?"

"No, hence the scarring," Hawke said, sounding rather guilty about it. "Look, I apologized after the incident itself, back in Kirkwall. He would have nothing of it, wouldn't hear of me saying sorry, for what it's worth."

"Because he was alright with it?"

"Maker, no! Because he was so inordinately angry with me!" Hawke said with a snort. "He wouldn't speak to me for a week."

"I see," Elodie said, trying to decide how she felt about hearing this side of things. "You know, when I asked about his scar, he said he deserved it."

"Ah," Hawke sat back in his chair, resting one palm easily on his knee as he cast his eyes upwards towards the shingled roof overhanging the garden's walkway. "At the time, I would've agreed with him. Now, I'm not so sure."

"He... told me that it reminds him to watch what he says," Elodie mumbled, feeling oddly as if she was defending the man in his absence. She bit her lip, gnawing it in lieu of blurting more.

Hawke paused, then gave a sigh.

"Like I said. He's changed since I last saw him."

"In a good way?" Elodie asked, tilting her head as she took another sip of her tea.

"I believe so," Hawke replied, glancing over at her with a warm, honest gaze. "For whatever his past, he is making efforts to atone for it now. And if we're being frank, he started to atone for it back in Kirkwall when he stood up to Meredith."

"Hmm."

She hadn't spoken to Cullen of this, of what he was trying to atone  _for_ or what serving under Meredith had entailed. Just the phrasing made her stomach turn, and it made her doubly uncomfortable to hear such an admission from someone she barely knew. As if he could sense it, or perhaps because he was a bit uneasy as well, Hawke cleared his throat.

"He speaks very highly of you, Miss Lavellan."

"As the Inquisitor, you mean?"

"Well yes, that too," Hawke mused, his tone growing light and playful. Remarkably, when he was relaxed, the man began to take on mannerisms Elodie saw in Varric. He chuckled to himself now, sounding suspiciously like the dwarf when he was making mental notes for a story. "Cullen is wholly devoted to your cause."

"He's a loyal advisor," Elodie confirmed.

"And a loyal companion, I would assume," Hawke said, causing her pulse to double. She wanted to ask him what he'd heard, what Cullen had said, but found her words tripped over one another just by the tip of her tongue and none of them could spill forth. Hawke spared her the trouble. "We have been talking in your absence, he and I. Since I got back from the Approach."

"Some little birdy hinted that you might have been meeting him."

"Varric?"

Elodie winked over her teacup.

"In order to get your arse handed to you over chess, I think it was?" she joked.

Hawke adopted a scowl that neither of them believed for a moment.

"Figures he would tell you. He prodded me about it and I wouldn't say a damn thing."

"I've never really known Varric to be nosy," Elodie said, narrowing her eyes.

"It's not nosiness, per se. He doesn't dig hard for information, but he's very observant. Especially when it comes to relationships."

"You... you don't think he's going to write about me and Cullen, do you?" Elodie sputtered, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips.

"Oh my dear girl," Hawke tutted, shaking his head. "I would bet you money that he already has."

"Fuck."

Hawke laughed and settled back more comfortably in his chair.

"It's not so bad," he reassured her. "He likes you. He'll go easy on the liberties he takes."

"We haven't really... announced this," Elodie muttered. "Me and Cullen, I mean."

"Cullen does seem to want to keep things private while it's possible to, yes," Hawke replied. He was about to take another drink of tea when a thought seemed to occur to him and he paused before blurting, "I want to assure you, Cullen in no way divulged anything personal to me about the nature of your relationship. I merely connected the dots in your absence, and he confirmed when I confronted him that he... has feelings for you."

"He did?"

Hawke nodded firmly.

"He seemed a bit flustered that I had picked up on it at first, but then after he thoroughly handed me my arse at chess, he opened up about it."

She laughed at the imagery.

"Once he had a win under his belt," Hawke said, "he told me in a surprisingly level voice that he was doing his best to court you properly. Taking things slowly, is how he phrased it, I think."

"It has been slow, but I appreciate that," Elodie mused, thinking fondly about how drawn out their feelings were and how delicious it was to be able to indulge in them little by little at last.

"He still wasn't pleased at how I brought it up, but I think it did him good to talk about it afterwards."

"How did you confront him, if you don't mind my asking?" Elodie asked, actually rather pleased that Hawke had taken such an interest. The man next to her heaved a great sigh and shot her a sidelong smile.

"One morning, while I was busy trying to figure out how to cheat him out of his daily win, he came out looking positively energized. And you know Cullen. Normally, he has an eternal imprint of sternness between his brows and tends to keep to himself. That is, unless he's being harassed by mesmerized onlookers."

"Mmm." _That's me_ , Elodie thought.  _The mesmerized onlooker._

"So I felt that I had to pry, naturally. I got on him a bit, hoping to distract him so that he wouldn't notice my duplicity. And..." Hawke smiled despite himself. "I told him offhandedly that you had very pretty vallaslin. Commented that it made me miss my Merrill. Asked if he missed anyone in particular at that moment."

"You did not," Elodie accused, pleased nonetheless.

"I did so! Cullen glanced up," Hawke raised a hand, his gestures matching his tale, his tone wistful and almost romantic, "and I swear to the Maker I have never seen him look so surprised. And rather than getting annoyed he asked me..."

Hawke paused, recalling the question with a fond expression.

"What?" Elodie asked, on the edge of her seat.

"He asked me, 'What does Merrill's blood writing remind you of?' in this tone that just... it didn't sound like the Cullen I'd ever gotten to know back in Kirkwall."

"What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain. In Kirkwall, he was kind of a pretentious arsehole. As if he were partitioning away his personality in his mind and putting off what he hoped was a good image. He was kind on occasion, and could speak in gentle tones. But he always seemed to be cut off from the situation. Now, it's different."

"Oh." Elodie could feel her heart pounding so hard against her ribcage, she was certain it was moving her gauzy tunic in quick bursts. Should she look down, she would see it beating out its staccato rhythm into the air around her. "Did you answer him, about Merrill's vallaslin?"

"I did. We had a rather lovely conversation about the Creators, trees, and family. He wanted to know a bit more about the Elven gods, even though he said you were Andrastian. Is that true?"

"I am." Elodie finally brought her tea to her lips, taking a long pull of it. When she swallowed, she realized Hawke was waiting for her to continue. "My father taught me. He was... strange," she gave by way of explanation. "Not very good at being Dalish."

"Nothing wrong with that," Hawke replied. "Merrill wasn't exactly 'good' at being Dalish either, and it never stopped me from loving her completely for who she was."

Elodie stared down into her teacup, unable to process the phrase without her ears feeling too light about her head.

"Were you First to your clan?" Hawke asked, probably sensing that he had shocked her into silence.

"No, I was not."

"Shame. I was trying to imagine how they would react to having an Andrastian First," Hawke chuckled. "Were you close to your Keeper?"

"I was, especially after my father passed away. She was a great comfort during that time, and a kind teacher. She never commented on my faith."

"I'm glad for it." Hawke smiled, his eyes empathetic. "It's a bit strange though, don't you think?"

"It is," Elodie whispered.

"Do you ever question your faith?"

"Who doesn't?" she rebounded.

"I only ask because they say you're the Herald of Andraste herself."

Elodie scoffed before she could withhold the reaction, a gut instinct. She turned to Hawke to see if she had offended, but he seemed amused.

"I don't think that Andraste would choose someone like myself to spread her teachings," Elodie clarified.

"The Maker moves in mysterious ways."

"I've never even been to a Chantry service," Elodie muttered. "Just informal things, passing here and there. Talking to Sisters outside of merchant stalls my father was trading at. Listening to the Chant as we rode past the Free Marchers' homes."

"Cullen didn't mention that."

"I don't know that he and I have had a chance to talk much about it," Elodie said. "We're still... getting to know one another."

"He asked me some things about Merrill, by the way," Hawke said, as if he wanted to take the spotlight off of her and Cullen's relationship for a moment. Elodie glanced over, relieved.

"Did he?" Elodie said politely, and even though she tried to keep her tone aloof, she could feel her cheeks growing pink.

"He asked if it was normal, when a human was in a relationship with a Dalish elf, for the human to meet their clan."

Elodie could feel her jaw clench, could feel her blood rise. Pleasure, shyness, and uncertainty swirled in a heady mixture about her head.

"And what did you tell him?" she asked.

"I told him the truth. Merrill was not on the best terms with her clan, so when I met them, it was... businesslike. Almost confrontational. Therefore my experience wasn't something to base his off of."

"Ah."

"But I also mentioned that he could probably bring your Keeper a gift, if he wanted to make a nice impression."

"He doesn't have to give Deshanna any-" Elodie cut herself off, then finished, "I have yet to heard word from my clan, I mean. We have no plans to travel to meet them anytime soon."

"You know Cullen is very fond of planning for all potential outcomes. I'm sure he'll log the information away for when the time comes- sorry,  _if_ the time comes," Hawke amended. Elodie gave a nervous laugh.

"No, no. _When_ is perfectly fine. I would have him meet my clan, if I could," she whispered. "I'm not entirely sure where they are at the moment. And even if I was, I don't know that I could find the time to slip away with Cullen just yet. The troops need him."

"And your people need you, as well. I understand," Hawke said kindly, and for a moment they both sipped their tea in quiet contemplation.

When Hawke finished his cup, he turned to her and stood before giving her a modest bow.

"I'm glad we could have this talk, Elodie."

"So am I. Garrett."

He smiled at the use of his first name, a soft expression that seemed to embolden his dark brown eyes with a glinting radiance. Before the moment could grow awkward, he turned and took his leave of the garden, moving back towards Skyhold's halls. It was only then that Elodie realized just how high in the sky the sun had risen. She blinked, registering slowly just what the rest of her morning required of her, and then in a panic, Elodie gulped down her cold tea and took off in a sprint towards the war room.

She had insisted on calling this meeting so early, had told Josephine it was fine, and she prayed they didn't disband and assume she was still asleep. She rounded the corner just inside the great hall, her bare feet silent on the stone floors, and almost bowled over two visiting dignitaries from somewhere in Orlais. Their facial expressions were unreadable behind the masks, but their cries of ' _oh la vache_ ' were enough to almost give her pause.

Almost.

By the time she jogged up to the heavy double doors leading to the war room, Elodie could hear her advisors carrying on casual conversation speculating as to her whereabouts. She halted, her hands flat and hesitant on the door handle. Through the wooden door, Leliana gave a tinkling laugh and she could hear Cullen tell the room that he was trying to be serious. Elodie frowned, never having been late before now, and debated very briefly on what she should say once she entered. Elodie decided to just approach it with brutal honesty and hope for the best.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she opened the door. “I know, I'm late. I got caught up in a conversation and totally lost track of time.”

“I-Inquisitor,” Cullen stammered. He glanced her over rather obviously, and seemed to take in her casual tunic, her braided hair, and her bare feet with an air of unintentional distraction. “We were…”

“Eagerly awaiting your presence,” Leliana supplied, crossing her arms to stare knowingly at Elodie. “Some of us more than others.”

Elodie looked to Cullen, who had dressed himself in full armor once more seeing as his training exercises were finished. His mouth fell open as their eyes met, and Elodie could see Josephine out of the corner of her eye bringing up her tablet to cover her smile. Despite their audience, Elodie could practically feel her cheeks glow as she smiled over at him. She could not hide how happy she was to see him, especially not after the garden conversation she'd just indulged in. There was so much that she wanted to ask him about, so much she wanted to hear him explain to her. What would he say, if he knew that she knew he had asked Hawke about her? Would he mind?

Cullen looked up to the rafters, his eyes fleeing from hers.

“I wasn’t… I mean I was…” He hooked at finger in his gorget and cleared his throat as he cast his eyes down to the table. “We have work to do.”

Elodie approached the war table deliberately so as not to prolong Cullen’s discomfort. She set both hands down on the table, surveying the map before her.

“Right. I assume you all were given copies of the surveys I took while in the Approach, correct? We can start there.”

“Of course,” Leliana said, sounding a bit too pleased with herself.

“Your reports were most helpful, Inquisitor,” Josephine said, saving the Commander with a mercifully swift conversation change. “We have Ser Rylen stationed at the keep in the Approach, which will provide us an amazing area to rest when we march through to Adamant Fortress.”

“And when will that be?” Elodie asked, shuffling through a stack of papers Leliana passed to her from across the table.

“When you give the word. However, as of right now, there is no great rush. We have received no signs of activity insofar as to warrant immediate retaliation.”

“See that you keep me posted.”

“As always, Inquisitor.”

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur. They ran through supplies necessary to build seige equipment, and which routes would suit the Inquisition best to travel along. Josephine was tasked with garnering support from nobles in the area to secure building materials. Cullen was to plan a scrimmage with the Templars and local troops, which would bolster their armed forces but also provide a chance for surrounding nobility to see their strength in action. Leliana was preoccupied with reports her agents had sent her from Haven’s wreckage. They had recovered certain fade-touched remnants that Leliana argued should be given to Dagna for research purposes. Cullen looked as if he were opposed to the idea, but Elodie fully supported it. She stopped the meeting only when her stomach growled loud enough to interrupt Leliana's report from an agent in Orlais. Elodie was desperate for food; the tea had only held her for so long.

“We’ll meet again tomorrow night,” she promised them. "After we've had a bit of time to prepare."

“Will you be staying at Skyhold for a while now, by any chance?” Josephine asked. “Vivienne and I have matters we wish to discuss with you.”

“The ball at the Winter Palace, right?” Elodie asked.

Leliana inclined her head in a nod, and Josephine looked as if she had been hoping it would be a secret.

“Y-yes. How did you know?”

“Intuition,” Elodie said, shrugging. Her Spymaster smirked as if she didn’t believe her, but said nothing.

“Well. Regardless, we have finally secured an invitation,” Josephine said proudly, her tone taking on a joviality it had lacked since the meeting started. “All we need now is the time to discuss the details, and we can being preparations for your trip to Halamshiral.”

“When is the ball to be held?”

“Two weeks from now.”

Her heart leapt to her throat. So soon? When… had they even thought to warn her that it would be so soon? She blinked hard. Rather than let her advisors see her nerves, Elodie tried to channel the feeling into forced productivity.

“Cullen,” Elodie turned to her Commander. He glanced up, his eyes wide, like he hadn’t expected her to address him in this thread of conversation.

“Inquisitor?” he answered automatically. His shoulders straightened, and he looked almost as if he expected a rebuke for his disgruntled expression. However, Elodie gave him a little smile.

“Can you draft me up some initial troop positions? We’ll have to be careful in our setup at the palace so as not to arouse suspicion. I’d like a copy of it tomorrow before the council meets again. At your, um,” she paused, distracted by how earnestly he was listening. Maker she was fond of the way he set his lips. Elodie cleared her throat, then finished, “At your earliest convenience.”

He searched her gaze, possibly looking for more hints as to what he should say to her in response. He seemed distracted, as if their meeting later on in the day was at the forefront of his mind when he knew it shouldn’t be. Elodie’s heart went out to the man; for all the reassurances she could give, she knew what it was like to dread telling someone something they needed to hear. Cullen bit his lip, drawing in the side with the scar between his teeth, then gave Elodie a nod.

“At once.”

"Actually," Josephine said, lifting her quill to accentuate her point, "I was hoping we could discuss the more... fanciful nature of the ball, rather than mere logistics. If you are free today perhaps we could-"

"I'm sorry," Elodie said, keeping her eyes deliberately off of the Commander. "But my afternoon is already completely booked."

"Ah." Josephine made a note, then glanced up with her head tilted cutely to the side. She was trying to look demure, as if she weren't about to rope Elodie into etiquette classes. Elodie had to hand it to her, she was very convincing. "Tomorrow then?"

"Tomorrow I have no plans," Elodie said with a smile, unable to even narrow her eyes in suspicion at the bubbly Antivan. Josephine gave a merry little bounce, like she'd lifted her heels off the floor in excitement, then jotted something down on her clipboard.

"I'm glad to hear it! It will only be a preliminary meeting, Inquisitor, do not trouble yourself to prepare anything at all."

"I look forward to it," Elodie answered, and only then did she chance flicking her gaze over to the Commander.

He looked as if the ball were the last thing he wished to be discussing, his expression tight and closed-off. But when he caught her staring, his lashes fluttered and seemed to banish the mask of sternness from his features. He gave her a tired smile, a mirror of the warmth she was sending him from across the table, and her heart went out to him once more.

"Alright," Elodie said, drawing her eyes momentarily back down to the table before her. "Unless anyone else has some last minute topics to discuss, I feel as if we're finished here. Sound about right?"

“One last thing, Elodie,” Leliana said, causing everyone in the war room to look up in surprise at her first name. The Nightingale smiled, as if she had expected nothing less. “Teasing of the Commander aside, I wanted to tell you that we’re _all_ glad you’re back.”

Elodie straightened her tunic from where it had fallen low over one shoulder, a nervous laugh at the end of her throat. But Leliana looked sincere, as did Cullen and Josephine in turn. She thought back to all of the letters she’d received from them, all of the promises of warmth upon her return, and strangely enough to Hawke's conversation with her in the garden. A surge of protectiveness welled in her breast, threatening to overwhelm her.

These people trusted her. They cared for her. Cullen was even opening up to more than just her, as Hawke had gone out of his way to reveal over tea. For the first time since the Approach, possibly since Haven, Elodie felt as if she was making a difference just by being herself. She could feel her shoulders straighten of their own accord, her posture embodying the pride she felt under her advisor's stares.

“So am I," Elodie confessed. "It’s good to be home.”

After the council disbanded, Elodie half expected Cullen to stay behind, to linger and cast a longing gaze her way. But he was the first to leave. He pushed open the double doors, held them only long enough for Josephine to take hold of them in his place, and then was gone with only a gentle flourish from his cloak.

“Inquisitor,” Leliana said, calling to Elodie as Josephine waited by the entrance. “I did not wish to alarm you, but I might have a lead on the Lavellan clan soon.”

“You…” Elodie paused, her blood running cold with the shock of it. “You’ve gotten in touch with them?”

“Not yet, not concretely, but we are in the process of confirming. Shall I prioritize this?”

“Yes. Yes please,” Elodie answered.

“Of course,” Leliana said, nodding so that her hood obscured her expression. “I will keep you updated should I hear anything.”

“Immediately?” Elodie asked.

“Immediately.”

“Thank the Maker.”

The relief in her voice was more than she’d meant to put into it, but Elodie did not shy away from Leliana’s prying gaze when the redhead looked back up at her. Leliana took a steeling breath and forced a smile.

"I admire your positivity, Inquisitor."

“Look, regardless of how they're doing, just... you didn't have to do this. And you did. You’re incredible, Leliana.”

“I do my best,” the Nightingale replied, looking as if she were trying not to seem pleased. Elodie followed her over to the door, and as they exited the war room, Josephine gave her a reassuring squeeze on her forearm. The redhead relaxed even further at her friend's touch.

“We will hear from them soon, I’m certain of it,” Josie said.

Elodie left her diplomat’s office with a spring in her step. Oddly enough, she could not shake the feeling that having spoken to Hawke had given her a stroke of luck. Perhaps it was what emboldened her to walk out with Leliana, only parting ways with her when they reached Solas’ rotunda.

Glancing around for her mentor, Elodie searched the entire rotunda for Solas after Leliana left her to resume her perch above the library. But he was nowhere to be seen. Elodie debated calling for him, but she assumed that he had left in search of books, or perhaps to speak with Helisma of her research items. She would find him soon.

_But you know... that door leads easily to Cullen’s office_ , her brain decided to inform her. Elodie glanced at the wooden paneling, the door she tended not to use because Solas was someone she respected too much to interrupt. But Solas wasn’t here now. And the door was. Beyond it, the walkway to Cullen’s office was one straight, easy stroll that she could finish in only a few minutes. She would not have to climb down steps, then back up them.

Before she lost her nerve, Elodie pushed the wooden door open and stepped out into the sunshine.

Her bare feet hitting stone seemed to anchor her, even as the air buffeted her about on the bridge. It was a signal of a thunderstorm to come, she could smell it on the air and could see the leaves turning their pastel underbellies up to the sky in anticipation of the moisture it would bring. But for now, sun kissed the part in her hair and the collarbone exposed by her shirt and the tops of her toes. Elodie soaked in every ounce of it, stretching her bare skin and thin layers in the daylight for the first time in what felt like ages.

For the first time, she approached Cullen’s door without nerves. She had decided she wasn’t here to talk. He was most likely not ready to talk. But she could leave him with this.

Her knuckles hit the door, rapping against the wood smartly, and Cullen called out from within,

“Enter!”

Elodie opened the door, but did not move into his space. Cullen looked up from behind his desk, a surprised scoff escaping him.

“You never need knock, Inquisitor.”

“I like the anticipation it brings,” Elodie said.

“I’ll bet you do.” Cullen paused, tilting his head. “You don’t intend to come in?”

She shook her head.

“Did you need me for something?”

She shook her head again, leaning one shoulder on the door frame as she crossed her arms.

Cullen caught on, smirking.

“Shall I assume this is not work related?”

Elodie smiled, but said nothing, and her Commander moved away from his bookshelf to advance upon her with deliberate, slow steps.

“I am not prepared for our meeting just yet, miss. I had expected to be given a bit more time this morning. I haven't even broken my fast.”

“I just wanted to see you,” Elodie whispered.

It wasn’t a lie, either. She didn’t expect them to talk. Or to touch. But she wanted to see him, wanted him to see her. Cullen allowed his eyes to trail down her length as he approached her, sighing as he did so.

“Well,” he murmured, bringing his honeyed gaze back to hers. “You’ve seen me.”

“So I have.”

Her voice was ill-concealed longing, happiness mixing greedily with disbelief. She could look at him for hours. The way he held himself, the way his expression changed as he worked, the way he spoke to her when he had pertinent information to relay. She enjoyed every minute of his company, even when she did not factor in how utterly and hopelessly attracted to him she was.

“And…” Cullen stopped in front of her, only a foot away. “Is there anything else I can help you with, by any chance?”

“Mmm,” Elodie shifted her weight, moving away from the doorframe to put both hands on her hips. “No. Nothing in particular comes to mind.”

“I see,” he answered, obviously not having expected that answer. A large, glorious smile tugged at his lips, stretching his scar white, and he mirrored her open stance as he scratched the nape of his neck with one gloved hand. “You’re an incredible distraction, you know.”

“I’ll leave before I render you unable to finish your work, then, Commander,” Elodie said, glancing him over one last time. She bit her lower lip appreciatively, but when she turned to leave, she felt a hand at her elbow.

Elodie stopped, feigning innocent surprise.

“Yes?” she asked, and Cullen let out a huff of a laugh.

“I like your hair braided like that,” he said, his voice ragged and soft, and he glanced down at her neck rather pointedly before pinning her with his gaze once more.

Elodie’s lips parted, his full meaning not lost on her, and she barely resisted the urge to bring up shaky fingertips to trace the length of her braid. Ridiculous. As if to reassure herself that yes, it was braided nicely, and no, he was not just teasing. Before she could say anything in response, Cullen’s fingers trailed down her bare forearm, lingering at the back of her palm. Her hand flexed immediately, stretching to allow him access should he wish to thread his fingers with her own, but he did not. He merely trained her with a dark, promising stare.

“Come back in the afternoon, Inquisitor,” he ordered quietly. “I’ll be able to talk more freely then.”

Elodie nodded, unable to find her voice. Cullen smirked, as if it satisfied him to see her speechless because of his fingertips, and he turned to move back towards his desk without another word. He gave her a little wave, and without thinking, an automatic nervous laugh was wrenched from Elodie's throat. Before Cullen could catch the blush on her cheeks, she left and closed the door behind her.

For a moment, she stood just outside his quarters, leaning against the door and breathing deeply in the sunshine while she waited for her heart to slow. She could smell rain on the edge of the horizon, could smell a storm.  _Calm down._ _Calm down. He barely touched you_. Her pulse finally slowed, her brain curtailing her desire, and Elodie knew in that moment that she needed to do something with her unkempt energy before she next met with this man. He was entirely too in control of her physical responses like this, with her focus askew and her desires laid bare.

She decided to move back to her quarters. She had a bag full of scrap items in the undercroft she could grab, and now she had tools with which to tinker. Elodie could wile away the hours until afternoon, and she would make something tangible of them to boot. With that goal in her heart, she crossed the bridge slowly from Cullen’s office and gingerly tucked a few stray hairs back into the plait of her braid as she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elodie gaining a wider perspective of the man she's fond of is like... super dear to my heart. She's not TRYING to be a gossip by any means, but she wants to know as much about him as she can. Maybe this came from my not having played any other Dragon Age games before picking up Inquisition, and then I subsequently dove headfirst into lore to find out more about everybody's backgrounds.
> 
> We're getting down to the difficult conversations between Elodie and Cullen, aren't we? Thank you for sticking with me so far <3


	27. Magpie Ingenuity

Elodie tended to go through phases with her work, whatever it was. Sometimes, she would start something and then put it to the side to be finished later, perhaps never picking it back up again until years had passed. Other times, she wanted nothing more than to finish a project she’d started only for the satisfaction of having completed it. The second reason was why she had taken her party over hill and dale in the Hinterlands all those months ago, and it was why she sequestered herself in her quarters now. She sent for food, but otherwise kept her door locked. The only mild distraction she allowed herself was that she kept her windows open, and the din of the busy stronghold acted as background music for her efforts.

Initially, she had intended on only finishing two little projects for Cullen and Vivienne, as thank you gifts for the lovely tool set. She had picked up a few metal objects, broken bracelets at the like, in order to test if the enchantment for the magical tool really did only work on iron. At first, she set it to a gold necklace that had no clasp, and the soft metal merely dented a bit where Elodie pressed into it. It did not melt, and the tool did not grow hot. Next, Elodie grabbed up a copper plate, one with a floral design pounded into the edges. She pressed the tool to an indented leaf, but it did not melt. Finally, she grabbed a little statuette of Andraste, figuring that this silver metal was most likely iron from the heft of it. Carefully, she touched the tip of the enchanted tool to Andraste's prayer-folded hands.

Instantly, the tip of the tool glowed bright white, and Elodie held the statuette further away from her lap. With a tiny plip, a droplet of molten iron dropped from the wrist of the Maker's bride and onto the rug. As soon as Elodie took the tool away from the statuette, its tip dulled once more and she no longer felt any heat radiating from it. Still, she wanted to be sure. With a hesitant touch, she brushed it against the leather of her breeches, just across the meat of her thigh.

It wasn't even warm. Not only did it not burn a line into her breeches, but none of the molten iron from the statuette had seemed to adhere to the tool when it cooled. Perhaps it was another portion of the enchantment that Cullen had failed to mention. Regardless, it thrilled Elodie to no end. Setting aside the slightly blasphemous feeling she was left with as she burnt away portions of the Maker's bride, Elodie made a trinket for Cullen and a gift for Vivienne in half the time it normally took her.

But then she’d still had half an Andraste leftover, and it would’ve been a bit pitiful to look at the torso-less martyr just laying toppled on her desk. She picked up other scraps, holding them to one another, trying to puzzle out more creations she could invent in the moment. While one project dried, set, or cured, she would start on another. And then another. Elodie got into a groove with her work, the sensitive pads of her fingertips growing slightly numb from the little pricks and pushes of the metal into her flesh, and it was glorious. The hours passed by quickly and productively, and she only stopped to run to the kitchens and bring back more food to nibble on as she worked.

She finished a bauble for almost every one of her companions, little things that made her smile to look at. She laid them out in a line, glancing up vaguely at the sun's position. The clouds were encroaching faster now, a slight but constant wind whipping up and dragging its fingers through the leaves on the trees below her quarters. The storm would hit by nightfall, she was sure, but it was not yet afternoon. Satisfied to continue waiting, Elodie decided to work on some final touches where Cullen’s gift was concerned. When someone knocked on the railing of her stairs, she whirled to cover what she was currently working on with her torso.

"Maker, you scared me!" Elodie said, holding a hand flat to her chest.

"My apologies. The door was open, I assumed you'd heard me call out from the door to your quarters," Solas said.

"Oh. I suppose I forgot to lock it," Elodie murmured.

"Shall I leave you?"

"No," she held out a hand to him. "No, you're fine, I was actually just cleaning up."

“We will have to open you up a shop pretty soon,” Solas said, stepping into her space with ease. Elodie smiled in gratitude.

“You’d be hard pressed to sell these,” she joked, holding up a headless mabari figurine.

“Please tell me that one is merely unfinished.”

“It’s a statement about feral nature,” Elodie postured, but then she saw Solas’ disdainful expression and cracked up. “Sorry. It’s scrap. I’m using it for parts, Solas, really. You should see your face.”

“My face isn’t the one I’m pleased to see back within Skyhold’s walls,” he said, moving up to sit beside her on the floor.

“Are you in a good mood today, _hahren_?” she asked, happy that Solas had given any thought to her return at all.

"Why do you ask?"

"You rarely start out a conversation complimenting me," Elodie teased.

“Forgive me," he said with a smile. "I am in a relatively good mood, yes. I won’t keep you for very long, though. I was on my way out to speak with Baelam about pigments when I thought to drop by and say welcome back. I’ve been wondering how you’ve been.”

He held his hand out and, as if she could read his mind, Elodie put her wrist with the ribbon into his outstretched palm. His fingers were cool, and he brushed a fleck of dried enamel from the flesh of her thumb with a playful glance up at her.

“Things have been better," she said with natural confidence, "thanks to you and thanks to this. It’s been a great help.”

“I can tell,” Solas replied, turning her wrist over and glancing at the fraying threads of the ribbon. “It’s doing its job and unraveling as it goes.”

“What happens when it comes undone?” Elodie asked, frowning. She hadn’t even noticed it sprouting stray threads at the edges.

“Nothing. Think of it as merely an enchanted balance beam, meant to help you to recognize when you are dreaming and allow you more control within the dreams. After a time, you should have the wherewithall to control everything by yourself, merely through force of will.”

“Hmm…” Elodie took back her wrist, tracing a circle around the ribbon with her index finger and thumb. “It does wake me up when I’m having a normal dream and realize that the bracelet is still blue.”

“A normal dream? As opposed to?”

Elodie hesitated, looking back down at her pile of baubles on the rug. She sifted through them, gently pushing at the cut iron and the chipped jewels.

“Sometimes I have visions when I’m awake. Brief flashes of past dreams.”

“Hmm.” Solas frowned. “You mentioned that to me once before, when we first arrived at Skyhold. It’s happened again since?”

“Only rarely. Once or twice.”

“I want you to record those experiences for me, if you can."

"As in, write down what time of day they happen?"

"Yes," he said, bringing one hand up to tap an index finger against the curve of his lips. "I’d be curious to see what kind of factors play into your mind slipping you fade visions while you go about your regular day. Do you think you could do that for me?”

“Of course, Solas,” she said. At his name, he inclined his head in a bit of a bow.

“Hopefully I can help you find the answers you seek. Dreams can be fickle things.”

“Can you dream in premonitions?” Elodie asked. She didn’t look up when Solas was quiet, figured that was answer enough for her. “Not that I’m having any dreams like that,” she lied, thinking back to the dream she’d had in the Approach. “I was just curious.”

“It’s possible,” Solas said carefully. “It is not likely, however, for someone who is not a mage to manifest such a strong link to the fade in order to do so. And, I would caution whoever was hypothetically having them,” his tone made Elodie blush, “that dreams are not facts. They are interpretations, perspectives, and ideas, but they are warped. If there is truth to be found in a premonition dream, it can be hard to discern, if it is indeed there at all to begin with.”

Elodie thought about it as he spoke. She had been mulling over what her dreams meant to her since she had returned from the Approach, since she had had such a vivid experience in a positive vein for once. The fantasy she'd created of rutting against Cullen in the darkened courtyard would have been a pleasant enough dream, but then it had bled through into the real world and left her sated and slick. That had never happened to her before. Pairing that experience with the flashes of visions she'd had while waking, Elodie had begun to worry that she was either losing her mind, or seeing things she was not meant to see. Even though she admitted nothing to Solas, she worried that she was seeing possible futures. She didn’t know how, or why, but the thought had crept into her mind and embedded itself like a glass shard in sensitive flesh. If she prodded at it, it hurt to think about, and so she left it deep underneath of her skin and tried her best just to ignore the pain of it.

It was hard not to make the real world connections, when she thought back to all of the terrifying night visions she'd been subjected to since her brush with the envy demon several months prior. Her first dreams about the Commander willing to sacrifice himself, as all her advisors were, felt like a warning about the Archdemon’s assault on Haven in retrospect. The way Cullen had been prepared to die, offering his neck as opposed to hers.

The next one that Elodie could remember was the pleasure of a hand at her throat after Haven, the one that had inevitably pushed her underwater and drowned her. After she had dragged the truth of her rescue from Cullen, she attributed that vision to his touch. That must have been her brain reacting to Cullen’s bare skin against hers in the real world. Easily explained, and not necessarily a premonition, but it did lead her to wonder if it was a sign of their relationship to come.

Finally, Elodie could not put the nightmare that had shaken her in the Approach out of her mind. Her dream of Kannara might have only been stress manifested, but the blue flower haunted her still, kept in an envelope deep in her pack. Just thinking of the pressed petals conjured up an image of the little girl holding a single finger up to her lips to keep everything a secret. Elodie shuddered even now at the thought. It added up, it connected somehow to events happening in reality, but she couldn’t quite see it yet. Maybe she would with time.

However, she had also had recurring dreams that made no sense to her upon waking. They did not seem connected to anything except memories, exactly like what Solas was speaking of now. Those dreams were the one of a figure rising from a pile of fur pelts as her father spoke with her, and then the memory of Imara in a tavern. Moments of her past that were trying to speak to her of her future, or so it felt like at the time. But now, chastised by her mentor, Elodie began to doubt the validity of that instinct.

That was just how dreams went, she realized. They didn’t mean anything just because you were seeking out meaning in retrospect. Suddenly, Elodie felt ridiculous for even entertaining the notion of precognition. She sighed and looked up at Solas with a smile.

“ _I_ _r_ _abelas, hahren_. I don’t know why I asked such a silly question,” she said.

“I will never not encourage you to ask questions, Inquisitor, no matter the logic behind them. Dreams can take many forms,” Solas answered, narrowing his eyes as if he could sense she wasn’t telling him the whole story. “Maybe it would benefit you to walk in the fade with someone else, figure your dreams out there in a place of safety.”

“Right,” Elodie chuckled at the impossible solution. “Andraste preserve us should _that_ ever happen. I wouldn’t wish these visions on anyone.”

“You… truly are Andrastian, aren’t you?” Solas murmured, as if in awe.

“Yes,” Elodie replied, treading carefully. Was he going to be offended that she didn’t believe in the Elvhen creators? She stared up at him, waiting. “I’ve never been to a Chantry service, but I believe in the Maker.”

"And Andraste?"

Elodie shrugged.

"I'm not very devout," she muttered. "I don't know how I feel about the woman. But I like the story."

“I see. And what of your vallaslin? The nod to Mythal?” he asked, gesturing to her cheek.

“In undergoing my vallaslin, it was more a bond with my father than a bond with Mythal that I was seeking,” Elodie confessed, sitting back on her haunches. “He believed the Creators were not necessarily worthy of being worshiped but worthy of respect. And I respected him. So I have these marks, because he had these marks.”

Solas squinted at her in the midday sun, tilting his head slightly.

“You do not believe the Creators were gods, then?”

“I…” Elodie paused, shrugging, then shook her head. Solas narrowed his eyes. Feeling a nostalgic sort of nervousness, Elodie struggled to justify herself. “They call me the Herald of Andraste,” she whispered. “And who knows if it’s truly Andraste who gave me this ability to tap into the fade like I do. I doubt it, but… regardless. They say I’ve been touched by something holy.”

Solas raised one eyebrow, but otherwise gave her nothing.

“So I wonder,” Elodie continued, resisting the urge to pick at a rough callous on her palm. “Wasn’t Andraste someone, a person, first and foremost? Didn’t she become something more later on, after her sacrifice? After she couldn’t stop people from talking about her, and after people felt guilty for what they'd put her through?”

Solas still said nothing.

“Will someone someday think that Iwas a god? Will they think that Corypheus was too?” She shook her head. “I don’t like that comparison, because I guarantee you I’m not special. And I don’t care if Corypheus said he had visited the Golden City, I don't care if he has an archdemon or twenty as his pets,” Elodie spat, “he’s not special either.”

Solas’ lip twitched.

“So, were the Creators in that same vein?" he asked her. "Not special?”

“I’m sure they were,” Elodie said, resisting the urge to backtrack. “But… it’s more comforting for me to think of a grand design far removed from those we believe walked before us. I’m not saying they didn’t exist, because I’m sure the Creators did, just as Andraste did. But I just… don’t feel called to worship them,” Elodie finished with a huff. “I don’t know why.”

His expression seemed guarded, cut off, and she wondered why she always seemed to overshare when she was around people she cared about. Elodie couldn’t read what he was thinking. It almost made her flinch when he finally spoke.

“I’ve never met a Dalish elf quite like you, Elodie.”

“I’m sorry,” she answered, intending to convey true remorse. This was who she was, a series of traits passed down to her from her father, and she would be lying if she said there were times when she didn't regret that. But she was also unable to change it.

Solas smiled.

“So am I." It stung, until he added quietly, "Would that I had met you sooner,  _da'len._  Perhaps it would have prevented me from judging the Dalish so harshly.”

“You should not judge the Dalish based on me,” she evaded. “My clan was loving, supportive, but even they didn’t really understand me.”

“I’m honored you’ve allowed me the chance to attempt to do so in their stead,” Solas said softly.

“You’re… being awfully wonderful this morning,” Elodie said, attempting to cover up her blush with a suspicious smile and narrowed eyes. A part of her wished that she could be less obvious, but it really did please her to have Solas showering her with approval. "I'm not sure what to do with such compliments."

“I can see that,” he replied, a ghost of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Elodie had to look away.

“I’ve been hanging around Dorian lately. So, forgive me but I have to ask you... is there something you want, Solas?”

“No,” the elf replied immediately, but then he glanced down. “Well, yes, but I had not intended to broach the subject of it with you until later.”

“Is it an emergency?”

“No, not at all. In fact, it’s good news. It involves the shards you found, the ones you asked me to look into.”

“Excellent. I recovered even more during my time in the Approach.”

“I figured that you would. If your current collection of trinkets was any indication, anyway,” Solas said, raising an eyebrow. “I wanted to tell you that my research has paid off, and I think I have located a temple that references the shards and their higher purpose. Perhaps the next time you venture out that direction, I could accompany you and we can discover it together.”

“Of course, you’re more than welcome to,” Elodie exclaimed. “Thank you for doing that. Can you submit a report to Leliana?”

“It is already done,” Solas answered.

“Where is this temple?”

“In a place called the Hissing Wastes, out past the Western Approach.” Her face must have immediately fallen, because Solas gave a surprised bark of laughter. “Whatever is that expression for, Elodie?”

“I would prefer to never see sand again, if I was given the choice.”

“It can’t have been all that bad,” Solas quipped. “I hear vandal aria are plentiful in the desert, for example.”

Elodie pulled her curls, heavy and still shining, over one shoulder. Could he smell the oil she’d used? Was that why he’d commented what he did? The idea made her feel powerful, for some reason, and vindicated. Elodie shrugged, trying not to seem overly proud.

“There were some flowers, yes. Not enough to entice me to return anytime soon, though.”

“Well. Even so. You seem to have found a bounty of treasures to dismantle at your leisure, so there’s also that.”

It was Elodie’s turn to laugh.

“Ever since I was a girl, I’ve collected stuff like this.”

“I imagine your aravel was atrociously glittery.”

She nodded, smiling at Solas fondly. If only he could have seen her clan. Elodie paused, the idea aching deep inside of her chest. He’d expressed that the Dalish had treated him, a wandering apostate, with derision and anger when he had tried to share in his knowledge. Back at Haven, when they had first met, Solas had talked about how little the Dalish really knew, and Elodie had asked that he teach them. That he teach _her_. Elodie’s heart had broken for him when he’d told her of the experience, compassion for someone searching for a place to belong overriding all her other reactions.

At the time, she never would have guessed that someday he would be seeking her out for casual conversation. Even less likely was the idea that he would someday compliment her unbidden. Maybe within Skyhold, Solas had found a small place to belong to in his own way, and had grown comfortable in his own way.

“While you’re here,” Elodie said to the elf at her side, trying to focus her thoughts back to more pleasant things, “and on the subject of slightly Dalish-related matters...”

Solas chuckled at her fumbling, but seemed not to expect it when she thrust a gift into his hands.

“What is this?”

“I made it. For you.”

“You did?”

“Yes! So that your aravel may be ever-glittery as well.”

Solas turned it over in his hands. It was a tin cup that Elodie had altered, painstakingly glueing curved filigree of silver wiring around the lip of the vessel. If one squinted hard enough, they were in the shape of downturned halla antlers, very much a counterpart to her own vallaslin design.

“See, I inlaid shattered emeralds and quartz in a clear gloss resin down here, layering them over top of this blue fabric I found. I set it with some ground-up gold flecks in the glue, watch.”

Elodie put her hand over his and tilted the cup in the sunlight, and the gold picked up through the quartz and reflected sharp green and gold auroras on their faces.

“It’s like the breach,” she said proudly. “Like when we first met.”

“Oh. So it is,” Solas answered, staring down at the cup as if trying to discern her craftsmanship’s authenticity. “Am I to drink from this?” he asked, his voice skeptical.

“No, the sculpted wire might be too sharp up by the lip,” Elodie said, waggling a finger at some of the twisted metal wiring. “But I figured, you might need a cup to rinse your brushes out in as you painted?”

He said nothing, so she shrugged.

“You could also keep it as a flowerpot, if you wanted to bring a plant or two into the rotunda.”

He wasn’t answering her, and it made her more and more nervous.

“Or you could put coppers in there to save them, or maybe even-”

“It’s beautiful, _da’len_ ,” Solas whispered, finally looking up at her with sincerity. Elodie felt her breath catch in her lungs, a somewhat guilty pleasure streaking through her at the praise.

“Oh.”

“The day you closed the breach is definitely something that stands out in my memory.”

“Have you painted it yet? The way you remember it?”

“I’ve considered it, but I could never do it justice when compared to this,” he continued, holding up her cup to the light once more. Elodie tucked her curls behind her ears, feeling a rather uncomfortable amount of pride and relief mingling together underneath of her skin.

“I’m really happy you like it, Solas.”

“Show me what else you’ve made,” Solas insisted, setting the cup down beside his knee. “I’m very curious, from one artist to another, as to what inspires you.”

“I’m no artist-” Elodie protested, but he cut her off with a _tsk_.

“Humility is admirable, but so is confidence,” Solas said. She resisted an eye roll, and instead broke into a smile. He really was like a Keeper, sharing the same well-intentioned tone of authority that Deshanna often employed. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, Elodie was reminded of her father and the way he would listen to her describe her projects for hours as they walked. She banished the thought as she brought forth her various projects from the day.

“Alright. Well. Here, let me show you the earrings I made for Josephine.”

“They look like they’re heavy,” Solas answered, eyes narrowed. “Is this a popular design lately?”

“I’m glad you mentioned that. So, I was glancing at some sketches the merchants had for sale. You know the ones on the stalls that illustrate trending styles? I designed these ones here to look like those ones. But mine are definitely _not_ heavy,” she said, placing them in his palm.

The thought of something painfully pulling on her sensitive ears had led Elodie to make something entirely scratch for her Antivan friend. She waited on bated breath for Solas’ assessment.

“You’re right. They’re like feathers. How did you accomplish this without making them too fragile to hold?”

“I’m actually quite proud,” Elodie blurted, practically beaming. “I made a resin to house some crushed stone dust, and then I overlaid it with some of these dragonfly wings I was collecting in the Hinterlands. They were petrified by some type of spell, Vivienne said. After that, I just reworked the little chains holding them together, and voila! A chandelier-like set of earrings with twice the sparkle for half the weight.”

“They really are a treasure. She’s going to love them,” Solas said, handing them back. “Dare I ask what the headless mabari is being used for?”

“Oh that,” Elodie snickered. “I made Sera a sketchbook cover from stretched red hart leather, and the mabari head is sanded on one side to cover the buckle that closes it. I stamped out a little motto in Elvish down the side, which she’ll probably hate me for, but it suits her. I considered just writing _fuck_ on the side, but that seemed a bit too on the nose.”

Honestly, Elodie half expected Solas to demand she not use such language, but he quirked an eyebrow in appreciative mirth.

“Intriguing stylistic choices, Inquisitor. I imagine Sera will love whatever you bestow upon her, and it is wise to give her something she would have difficulty mangling.”

“Thanks,” she gave her curls a vigorous fluff as her heart swelled with gratitude.

Little by little, she walked through what she had made for each of them. A set of windchimes for Cole, to catch the light up in the attic of the tavern and play beautifully if a breeze should carry through. An altered hourglass for Josephine, with delicate strings of crushed pearls hanging from either end. Leliana would be getting a bejeweled letter opener with hand-crafted raven wings along its handle, made from the remnants of figurines and locks Elodie had squirreled away. Two book-ends for Dorian, made from a series of dissected statuettes that Elodie had then arranged into a vignette on either side of two metal plates she had forced into L shapes. She had made a series of delicate barrettes for Cassandra to clip into her hair from pounded gold leaf, but had also created a decorative scabbard for her should the first gift prove too delicate for the warrior's taste. At each gift, Solas inquired about the manner of crafting and then gave either advice or a sincere compliment. Even with his encouragement, Elodie decided not to share the gift she had made for Cullen; she couldn't explain it, but it just felt too private to share with even her mentor. She set it to the side, deliberately covering it with a scrap of fennec fur as she rearranged the other gifts in a row.

"You've had a busy morning," Solas said appreciatively.

“I feel good about it, for the most part."

"For the most part?"

"Honestly, I’m at a loss as to what to make for Bull,” Elodie confessed, leaning onto her palm and gesturing to all the unused fragments strewn about on the rug. “He and Varric are giving me some trouble. Bull doesn’t seem the type to like jewelry, and I need to figure out how to make a necklace that won’t get caught in all of Varric’s chest hair.”

Solas didn’t laugh; in fact, he looked pensive.

“Would you like my advice?”

“From one artist to another?” she teased. He shot her a sidelong glance, smiling with his eyes, as he picked up a dawnstone fragment.

“The Iron Bull really likes this metal,” Solas said. “I overheard him discussing it with Blackwall in the tavern one night. He likes dawnstone, and he _really_ likes dragons, so maybe he might appreciate a charm he can attach to his weapon of choice. Something garish, I’d say, reminiscent of our flying, scaley friends.”

“Not a bad idea. Not bad at all," Elodie murmured, already inspired. She paused, then narrowed her eyes at Solas. "Wait, though, you were in the tavern?”

“I went to seek out Cole, to make sure he’s adjusting alright to living at Skyhold. I merely overheard the conversation.”

“We’re pretty good at that whole eavesdropping thing,” Elodie said, meaning elves in general. Solas shot her a look.

“Listening in just the right way can be an art in the right circles.”

“Well regardless, I’m glad you listened in just the right way, because that is a wonderful idea,” Elodie said, sifting through some of her research items. “I'll think a bit further on how to make a pendant for Varric. Perhaps some sort of leather braiding..."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," Solas said.

"For Bull's gift though, I was going to turn these in to Helisma, but I bet I can take the little chipped dragon teeth I gathered in the Approach and fashion them with some quillback spines and-” she paused, then gripped his hand with hers. “Really. Thank you, Solas.”

“My pleasure,” he answered, getting to his feet with her cup in his hand. Elodie noticed that he disentangled himself from her hold with grace, and had she not been looking for a squeeze back she may not have noticed how his hand clenched reflexively at her touch. Solas inclined his head down towards her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Inquisitor, I think I need to go and find a place on my desk for this beautiful accent piece.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Elodie said, “if that’s alright. I want to give some of these gifts away today.”

“You’re too good to us,” Solas said, a small smile plastered onto his lips.

Rather than reassure her, the expression gave her pause. Something seemed to be troubling him. Elodie listened carefully when they spoke as the two of them exited her quarters together, but the note that had bothered her didn’t return to his voice. At least, not that she could tell. Solas continued on, broaching the subject of Halamshiral with her in as jovial a manner as if he were discussing what was for dinner. It must have been all in her head, Elodie reasoned to herself when she left him in his rotunda. For a minute, however, she thought she’d heard Solas's voice laced with distinct and painful regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my Elodie playthrough, I liked taking Solas, Varric, and Cassandra out together whenever I brought the egg anywhere. Solas and Sera were also kind of fun to listen to at the same time, but it didn't seem in character with Elodie to throw them in the same party over and over again. My peace-keeper girl liked to keep those two separate. Elodie found it difficult to dislike Sera and difficult to displease Solas. When his approval popped up, for whatever reason or decision, Elodie felt really vindicated. When Sera disapproved of something, Elodie didn't really concern herself, she figured Sera would get over it. And she tended to.
> 
> Not to say that Elodie has validation issues... but... ^^;;;
> 
> I wish more than anything we could give gifts to our buddies in Inquisition. I loved the reactions I would get from companions in Origins, and I just want to hear Leliana go "oh, how dear of you" again in Skyhold ;_;
> 
> Hopefully you're still alright with the back-to-back updates, I normally don't like to throw so many chapters up in a week but I have another one to send directly after this!! <3


	28. A Weight Off His Shoulders

Elodie spent the rest of the day walking about Skyhold and divvying out her trinkets. Vivienne was speaking with a cousin of a councilmember, so Elodie left her a note alongside of her gift. She set a very small folded fan covered in bleached white butterfly wings onto Vivienne’s table, hoping the enchanter would like the wings as much as Elodie herself did. They were strange, but she’d found them in the Dales and had loved how ethereal they looked. Glossed in a mesh-like resin, the wings gave the folding fan an almost lifelike quality that she thought Vivienne would appreciate.

Making her way down to the tavern through the main hall, Elodie inhaled deeply the fresh air of the Frostbacks and tried to steel herself for her Red Jenny’s reaction. Assuming Sera liked her gift, pouncing might be involved. If Sera didn’t like it, there was no telling what she’d do besides sneer, but Elodie wasn’t ever going to let her guard down when there was a risk of pranks.

However, Elodie never would have expected the reaction she got. She thought Sera was going to cry when she handed over the journal cover, and Elodie didn’t know what to say.

“If it doesn’t fit, I put some clasps at different intervals on the inside so you can fold it to suit the journal,” Elodie said, mainly just to have something to cover Sera’s shocked gasp. She opened the cover to show her, and Sera squeaked. “You let me know if it’s not-”

“Cripes, I owe you like twenty bracelets for this,” the elf gushed. “It’s so great. I love the color. I love the weight of it. I love the pup face.” Sera bounced up and down, grabbing the cover from Elodie to turn it over in her hands. “Is it waterproof? Aleproof? Wait.” Sera glanced up, brow furrowed. “What’s this elfy junk on the spine?”

“Just a saying,” Elodie teased.

“Damnit Ellie!”

“Wait! It's  _t_ _el’abelas_ ,” Elodie said. “Translates to _I’m not sorry_.”

Sera frowned further, her nose wrinkling, and for a second Elodie was afraid she’d be even more offended.

“It’s not a bad thing!” Elodie blurted. “You know who you are, and you take as good as you give. I admire that about you, Sera. You've got no reason to apologize.”

The lines relaxed on her friend’s face, and Elodie watched as Sera’s eyes positively began to glimmer again.

“Stop it, you! I can’t have you being so mushy. You’re going to make me look like a soggy pastry.”

Still, Sera pulled her into a hug, one that Elodie returned just as tightly.

“Are you staying in Skyhold until tomorrow at least?” Sera asked when they pulled away.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Good. I’ll be here, yeah? Come see me. We can have a drink, relax a bit. For once!”

“I'll take you up on that,” Elodie said.

She moved away from Sera’s own pile of cushions and headed down to where she’d seen Scout Harding speaking to an agent at the entrance to the tavern.

“Inquisitor,” the dwarf said, pleasant as ever. “We’re here on resupply. Man, you’ve done wonders with this place since I last dropped by!”

“You like it?”

“Feels important,” Harding confirmed. “And very pretty, to boot.”

“It was mostly Josephine and Vivienne, or so I’m told.”

“I can see some Inquisitorial touches here and there, though,” Harding said with a little wink. Elodie grinned immediately.

“I’m glad I caught you,” Elodie answered. She rummaged in her bag for Harding’s gift, and held it out without any ceremony. “I worried that I wouldn't see you until I next set out on a recon mission."

"W-what?"

"I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate our conversations, even if we do tend to go to stranger and stranger badlands in order to have them. You’re truly invaluable, Scout Harding.”

“I…” Harding took the little compass, the back of it inlaid with a small crushed-ruby apple that Elodie had made mosaic-style from a pattern of her own design. It was strung with a long leather strap that Scout Harding immediately wrapped around her belt loop, almost as if she was scared she would drop it and break it if she didn’t. The dwarf held the gift adoringly in her hands, turning it over and over to catch the sun’s rays in the ruby shards. After a long pause, she looked up at Elodie with her jaw hanging open.

They both laughed at Harding’s dumbstruck expression, and Elodie was glad it broke some of the tension.  Harding shook her head, still baffled.

“I don’t know what to say, Inquisitor.”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

“Good! It’s really not much, but I wanted to give you something useful. I hope it works alright.”

“I love it,” she repeated, even more firmly. “How much was it? I have to pay you for it.”

“Nonsense,” Elodie laughed. “I made it!”

Harding looked as if she had swallowed a bug.

“You…” she gave a sweet little giggle, then reached out to Elodie once more. “Is it strange to ask for a handshake? This is so nice.”

“Not at all,” Elodie answered, reaching out and gripping Harding’s hand in both of her own. She left before Harding could stutter out anything more, giving her a wave as Elodie climbed the steps leading up to Cullen’s office. Elodie loved making things, true, but giving things away was almost as good a feeling. Behind her, she could hear Harding flagging down Cassandra, shouting something about not being able to believe it.

Elodie did not let herself grow nervous as she walked the battlements. She passed by the place where Cullen had kissed her all those weeks ago, where she had discovered his so-called ‘neck thing’, and yet Elodie did not allow herself even a second glance at the spot. She fully intended to give Cullen his gift, and then listen to him, open-hearted, no matter what kind of bad news he was prepared to deliver to her. Only when she knocked on his door and heard nothing did she hesitate.

Maybe he was out? At the armory checking on swordhilts, or possibly in the library asking Dorian about research? She hadn’t waited for him to send for her, so there was a possibility that he simply wasn’t there. In any case, she could still go in, she reasoned. She would just leave a note on his desk beside the present, saying she’d dropped by and would come again later. She cracked the door, hesitant, and was shocked to find her Commander standing behind his desks. He was frozen, seemingly lost in thought, with both hands braced on the wooden surface. He was glaring down at a box placed that rested between his palms.

“Cullen?” Elodie called.

“Oh. Elodie,” he answered, sounding groggy as if he were just waking up from a dream.

“Is it okay if I come in for a second?” she asked immediately. “You must be busy, and I know you didn’t send for me yet, so-”

“No. I mean yes! I-I’m glad you dropped by,” Cullen answered, gently closing the box and straightening his shoulders. “I was just about to send for you, actually. Once I sorted out just how I wanted to approach this.”

Elodie lingered in the doorframe, skeptical.

“Did you not hear me knock before?” she asked, tilting her head.

“I apologize, I have been… rather lost in thought.” He looked up at her, his expression brightening if only a fraction. “Did you have a decent morning?”

“I did. I put your gift to good use,” Elodie said, a responsive smile bursting forth as she leaned onto the doorframe.

“How did they do?” Cullen inquired, and a thin line formed where his brow knit together in concern. “No issues?”

“None whatsoever. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to work this quickly before,” Elodie confessed.

“I’m pleased that they suit your needs,” he replied, relaxing visibly.

She moved further inside, closing the door behind herself as she walked over to stand closer to him. Cullen's eyes crinkling as he smiled.

“Can they be packed away easily?” he asked, and Elodie couldn't help but wonder if he was fixated on her present as a method of coping with what he had to tell her. She gestured to the pouch on her hip, patting it as she tried not to let her smile falter.

“You had them made very delicately, so yes. They fit perfectly. They’ll be so easy to carry with me on my next mission, and I won’t forget them.”

“Good.”

Despite his expression, she could sense an air of exhaustion about him. It was the same one he’d embodied last night when she’d come up to his office directly after arriving at Skyhold. She wondered if he would feel feverish, should she press her fingertips to his cheek. Elodie’s own countenance must have darkened, because Cullen stopped smiling. He cleared his throat, his hands back at the pommel of his sword. Blinking away her worries as best she could, she attempted to smile for him, to ease his disquiet.

“That reminds me, speaking of _not_ forgetting things,” Elodie opened the bag slung over her shoulder and brought forth a little pouch. With a tilt of her head, she held it out towards Cullen. “I made you something. I wanted to give this to you. Before I forgot.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Well… that’s lovely. I’ll have you know, this was not what I intended when I gave you the tools.”

“As leader of the Inqusition, I reserve the right to bestow shiny objects upon my closest friends whenever I please,” Elodie teased. Her phrasing seemed to catch something in Cullen’s mind, because his brow twitched tighter and his mouth set itself in a line. He didn’t even seem to register her gift. She waved it at him a bit, dangling it in the air between them. “Aren’t you going to take it from me?”

“I… believe me, I want to,” Cullen said, hesitating. He brought a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it as he looked away. “But first, as leader of the Inquisition, you…” he paused, sighing. “There’s something I must tell you, Elodie.”

“Oh.” Elodie moved towards him as he turned towards the slit in the wall, a tiny window through which only arrows could fit. She tucked his gift back into the pack slung about her shoulders, then decided to take the whole thing off. Setting the bag gently on the floor, she moved towards Cullen and rested one hip on the edge of his desk. “Is this the… talk?” _The one I've watched you dread?_

Cullen sighed.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?" Elodie blurted. "If now's not a good time, or if you're feeling-”

“There is never a good time to bring up something such as this.” Cullen paused, hesitating. “I wanted to start off with an apology. After last night, after you allowed me to visit you in your quarters, I’ve done a lot of thinking. I had wanted to greet you properly yesterday, immediately upon your arrival, and I fear I failed to do so. When I saw you in person again, when I heard your voice, it threw me. All of my intentions seemed to have gone out the window, and all I could do was keep myself together as you touched me."

"Cullen. There's no need to apologize."

"I’m sorry, I didn’t feel it was my place to…”

Cullen cut himself off with a tsk, a hard noise of tongue against teeth, and shook his head. Elodie waited for a moment, curious to see where he would go with this line of thought, but he seemed to be silently berating himself with no intention of elaborating further. She decided to step in.

“When you wrote me letters,” Elodie supplied hesitantly, “you talked about showing me how much you missed me. Has your desire to do that changed?”

He glanced back at her, his expression resigned.

“No, not in the slightest. But I did not want to take advantage of any physical closeness you offered until we’d spoken. There’s always a risk that you’ll think differently of me after this conversation. I mean, I hope that you don’t. I just… I would understand if you do.”

"I doubt what you say could change how I feel about you."

He scoffed, then seemed to remember himself and Elodie could see a deep flush color his skin about his neck and ears.

"Forgive me. I don't mean to be rude, I just," Cullen cleared his throat. "I have to consider all possible outcomes."

“You think I will dislike you for this?”

“That’s… a bit oversimplified, but yes. In a way.” His hands clutched the back of his chair, its wood and embroidery the only thing separating him from her. Elodie leaned back further on his desk, distraught. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest, but just barely.

“Go on then,” Elodie said, her stomach spreading cold apprehension out to her limbs. What could have him this nervous? Had he betrayed her? Lied to her about something important? “Whatever it is, Cullen,” she whispered, “I’m willing to listen.”

Cullen nodded, averting his gaze.

“As you may know, lyrium grants Templars our abilities. It strengthens our resistance to magic and allows us to declare the world real, so to speak. I realize you are not a mage, and therefore might have a limited scope on what that entails.”

“I have read some texts on the subject,” Elodie said quietly.

It was a bit difficult for her, Cullen wasn't wrong about that. Seeing as she had no image for a Circle, or for the tension therein, she had no real basis for why Templars even needed lyrium to begin with. Beyond what she’d seen of the Inquisition’s troops, she had only heard stories mage refugees had told her. Paired with things that she’d read in books, it had painted a vague picture about abilities that lyrium enhanced within a Templar's power. Before Therinfal, she had pored over all of Haven’s available documents to make sure she was making the right choice. As she ran over the Order's history and their purpose, what little she learned of the Order’s training left her feeling intimidated and raw. Something called a Holy Smite sounded like an ability she never wanted to see enacted in person.

“Templars take lyrium differently than mages, right?” she offered, trying to recall more on the subject.

“Yes. The draughts Templars imbibe are less potent, prepared in a different manner than those mages take to replenish their mana. Even that is not without risk, of course, but mages are more apt to recover from such exposure. Where Templars are concerned..." he cleared his throat, then straightened his shoulders more fully under Elodie's watchful eye. "The lyrium helps Templars enhance our abilities,” Cullen continued, “but it controls us as well. Those cut off from it suffer. Some go mad, others die.”

Elodie could feel the cold within her reach her tongue and chill her mouth. She clenched her jaw to keep from shivering visibly. She did not like where this was headed.

“One of the first things that you did, that you allowed us to do, was to secure a reliable source of lyrium for the Templars here at Skyhold,” Cullen said, gesturing to the box on the desk behind her hip. She stood unceremoniously, moving so that he could reposition himself more easily behind his own desk. Cullen paused, staring at the box. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and dutiful. “But I… no longer take it.”

Elodie looked down at the box with a simple carved figure of Andraste on the lid. Hesitantly, she reached for it. Cullen leaned back a bit, one of his hands lingering beside the box, but he did not stop her from tipping the lid back so that she could peek inside. The kit was comprised of tools she didn’t recognize, arranged meticulously just so within the wood and velvet.

“When did you stop?” she whispered. She meant it as a casual question, but Cullen winced at her tone.

“Almost a year ago, when I first came to Haven. I have not touched it since I joined the Inquisition.”

“But you keep the equipment for it,” she confirmed, her voice numb.

He did not reply.

“Does it hurt?” she asked in a rush.

“It’s nothing I can’t endure,” he replied. She shut the lid, her concern elevating into fearful territory.

"What are you enduring, exactly?"

"Symptoms can vary. Right now, mine are minimal," he evaded, looking uncomfortable at her questions.

“You said you could die from this,” she said with finality, her eyebrows furrowing in fear.

“But I haven’t yet,” he said sharply, and Elodie struggled to bite her tongue. “After what happened in Kirkwall, I couldn’t…”

Once again Cullen trailed off, and Elodie didn’t know how to reach him. He continued, glossing over his original sentence.

“I will not be bound to the Order, or that life, any longer. Whatever the suffering, I accept it.”

“The alternative is that bad, that you would risk madness, or death?” Elodie uttered, wondering once more how little she knew about him. She watched as he dragged his hand across his mouth, seemingly steeling himself.

“To me it is.”

“I see.”

Elodie fell still, unable to process the weight of Cullen's confession. She wished she’d known sooner, but how could he have told her? She’d been leaving, coming and going, missing. When she was at Skyhold, even when she was at Haven, she must have asked the wrong questions. All that prying, and it had been in the wrong direction. Cullen had been left to himself and his thoughts, had worried about his own symptoms in silence. Through all of this, he had still written her letters, crafted a gift for her, and found ways to think of her instead of himself. He had not only begun a relationship with her, but he was still fulfilling his every duty as if his position as Commander did not sap the energy from him.

And Elodie had been upset about the lack of a physical greeting. She glanced away, deeply ashamed at how focused she had been on her desire.

“Withdrawal symptoms should be minimal, seeing as I am aware of what to expect and am taking care of myself,” Cullen offered. “They will not come on strongly for a while yet, but they have started to increase in their frequency. Which is why I hastened to confess my decision.”

His tone was tentative, seeking, and Elodie wondered if _he_ was trying to comfort _her_ in this moment. The thought didn’t sit right with her, and she tried to nod to show him that she was alright. The tools on her belt felt so much heavier than they were in that moment. Even though she was unaware of it in the moment, Elodie's hand came to rest gently upon the pouch that contained them, as if she were protecting them.

"Does it hurt?" Elodie whispered. She blinked back the slight sting she felt at the corner of her eye, her heart pulling her in several different directions at once. Should she comfort him? Allow him time alone? Apologize? Cullen straightened, resting both of his hands on the pommel of his sword.

“It’s bearable, for now. However, I have asked that Cassandra… watch me.”

Cullen seemed to hesitate, his voice contrite and taut. Still, he looked at her with unassuming eyes, not hiding from her judgment should she have it. Elodie bit her lip to keep herself from interrupting with more questions.

“If my ability to lead is compromised, I will be relieved from duty. It will not affect my work, Inquisitor,” Cullen promised, and Elodie let out her breath in a surprised exhale.

“And what of the other aspects of your life, Cullen?” Elodie asked. “I'm worried for  _you_. Not just your duties."

“Me?” Cullen asked, clearly caught off guard. “I, ah… ahem.” His leathers creaked as he shifted his weight from hip to hip, shuffling as he thought about his answer. “I had not really considered much being affected besides my responsibilities as your Commander. But I don’t- I mean, I won’t fault you if you don’t want to-”

Cullen sighed deeply, cutting himself off with a muttered curse. He looked towards the floor, away from Elodie’s feet. She tried to pick apart his posture, his noises, but couldn’t discern a clear answer from his body language. She had to keep pressing.

“Do you wish to put an end to our…” Elodie paused, not quite sure what their letters and kisses and stolen glances were classified as. She recalled her conversation with Hawke that morning, a brief flash of something Cullen had said to the Champion. She blurted on a whim, “Our courtship?”

His eyes widened and he hurriedly shook his head.

“No! Why would you ask that? Did I give you any impression that I-”

Cullen stopped, unable to find the right words, and Elodie did the only thing she could think of. She reached out, placing a hand over his breastplate. He exhaled immediately, as if her touch had relaxed some tension in his mind. She swallowed hard against the mixture of relief and anxiety she felt in the back of her throat, and caught his eyes with her own.

“Thank the Maker," she burst with a nervous laugh. "I don't want to end it either. Your friendship means so much to me, I worried that you wouldn't want any further-" Elodie cut herself off with a rueful shrug, gesturing to herself. "Unnecessary distractions."

"Your warmth is always a welcome distraction," he answered, his frown belying his sweet words. Elodie tilted her head, confused. His brow furrowed, mild frustration written there. “Before you left,” Cullen whispered, “I promised you that you would not doubt where you stood in my mind. And here we are again.”

Elodie gave a small snort, shaking her head.

“There is nothing wrong with that,” she answered. “We’re learning.”

“We?” he asked. “You’ve been guiding me through this, I feel.”

“Maybe sometimes, but you know you do the same for me, right?”

“I don't think-”

“I feel as if my gut reactions are caused by my own insecurities," Elodie said with a smile. "Not by you failing to do one thing or the other."

"You do?" he asked, his hand at her elbow in a steadying gesture of support.

"I worry that I pry too much,” Elodie said, her voice more fragile than she’d hoped it would be. “That you’ll grow tired of my questions. And therefore that you’ll grow tired of me. It has me second-guessing the way I speak with you about these things, or how much I push for-”  _intimacy_   "-more."

“I love your prying,” Cullen said with a surprising ferocity, reaching up to place his gloved hand over hers briefly. Elodie's heart skipped a beat, and she brought her eyes up to his in awe at the admission. When he dropped his hand, she did as well. Cullen cleared his throat. "I hoped that, through this admission, we might continue our courtship as honestly as possible. I hope that this would show you how serious I am. About the Inquisition, but also about you.”

“Oh,” Elodie wrung her hands together, both pleased and unsure how to respond.

“Elodie.”

Her name on his lips still infused her blood with a bright eagerness. She immediately brought her eyes back to his.

“I am so sorry.” Cullen frowned, then added softly, “I know that I should have told you sooner.”

“Were you really worried that I would think less of you for stopping lyrium?”

“Yes. It is a risk that could adversely affect my position as one of your advisors, my position as Commander of your forces, and my ability to make rational decisions where your movements are concerned. I do not pretend that there is not a chance this will end poorly, but it is something I feel I must undertake."

"So why didn't you tell me sooner?" Elodie asked, biting her lower lip.

"At first, I did not feel it mattered, since I exhibited no symptoms. It was a personal affair.”

“But then?”

“Then…” he gave a shake of his head.

“Is this where your headaches stem from?” Elodie asked, a flash of clarity illuminating her mind. "Your fever, when you're tired?"

Cullen swallowed hard, then nodded.

“Those are some of the symptoms that can manifest, yes.”

“Cullen.”

“When the symptoms began to worsen, I realized I had a responsibility to the Inquisition and its leader. I had to tell you so that it would not come as a surprise should Cassandra have to intervene. But then you confessed to me how you felt, and..." he gave a helpless sigh, as if he could barely believe it, still. "I was lost in you. Somehow I could not find the time or the words to tell you this secret, and then I set it aside for too long. By the time you left for the Approach, it had started to feel like a lie of omission.”

“Were you still nervous, even after you knew how I felt about you?”

“I don’t like trying to predict how others are going to react,” Cullen admitted. “But yes. More so because I care for you as well. I feared the worst, but that is not a comment on you.”

“Good to know,” Elodie replied. “So... is this why you're hesitant to... indulge?”

The phrase seemed to affect him just as it did her. Elodie could read desire flitting briefly across his features, darkening his eyes, lingering on the edge of his lips as they parted for her. She tilted her chin up to him automatically, and she could not tell if it was this gesture that brought him back to himself, or if Cullen merely remembered something else he wanted to say.

“It’s… hard to feel as if I deserve to lose myself in something like that, not when I have to force myself to work through the withdrawal symptoms. Maybe I was afraid of trading one addiction for another,” he whispered. “I do not want to associate the way your lips feel with the ache of lyrium withdrawal, Elodie.”

Elodie fell still, running her fingernails lightly over the lacquered wooden lid of his lyrium kit box as she tried to process everything. Cullen had asked for nothing from her besides patience, and the caution he urged her to take when she left on missions. He asked for nothing now besides her understanding. Maybe not even that. Maybe he only wanted her to acknowledge him.

“If this truly is your decision, then I respect it,” she said, setting her palm over the box resolutely. “And I respect you for telling me.”

“Are you upset?”

He was frowning, face locked in a calculating expression that made Elodie wonder if he was having a hard time reading her. She exhaled slowly.

“No,” she answered, shaking her head hard enough to send her curls tumbling over one shoulder. “Worried for your sake, but not upset.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said softly.

“Thank you for not writing this in your letters. It was definitely a talk to have in person,” she said. Trepidation still pulsed within her limbs, almost like static on the edge of a storm was playing across her skin and thrumming through her hair follicles. “Is there anything else you wish to discuss while we're on the subject?”

“One final thing. Let me reassure you,” Cullen promised, his voice rough. “I strongly feel that the Inquisition’s army must always take priority. In the event something should happen with me, I will defer to Cassandra’s judgment, and I ask that you do as well. Even if it means that I am to be replaced as your Commander.”

“Then… let us hope it will not come to that,” Elodie replied.

“Indeed.” Cullen seemed to have been waiting for her to acknowledge that sentiment directly. His shoulders visibly deflated, his armor creaking as he placed both hands palm-down on his desk. “I’ll keep you informed,” he repeated, and then winced when he realized he was saying the same things. "Sorry."

Elodie couldn’t help but smile sadly at him. She reached out, placing a hand on his pauldron. The armor was slightly warm to the touch, as if the glimmering gold metal encapsulated rays of sunshine somehow within its depth.

“For what it’s worth, I find it commendable that you wish to take back your life on your own terms. Especially after everything you've shared with me from when you were a Templar,” she murmured. “It can’t be easy to do this on your own.”

“I haven’t told you everything of my life in the Order,” he said, voice strengthening. He straightened, her hand falling away. “But know that I want to. Someday, I hope that you and I might be able to speak of it all.”

“Only when you’re ready,” Elodie said firmly, and she smiled at him in an effort to remind him that she cared. Cullen returned the gesture, obviously growing more and more comfortable as they spoke. He cleared his throat, glancing down at her toes.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked, incredulity lacing his voice. She shrugged.

“Not really,” Elodie said, flexing her feet on the stone floor so that her pinky toe tapped on his boot.

He gave a little laugh, nudging her foot back without lifting his boot, almost as if he were afraid he might step on her toes.

“Why do you ask?" she quipped. "Would you prefer it if I wore shoes in your office?”

“You can do as you wish, Inquisitor,” Cullen said with a smirk. “I keep my space well-swept, so you’re not at risk of any splinters or glass shards here. Now, as for the stables or the surgeon’s quarters, I can’t guarantee the safety of your feet out there.”

“I find your concern for my flesh very chivalrous, Commander,” Elodie joked.

He flushed at the teasing, and it was a welcome change of expression from the stern, controlled mask he had worn just a few moments before. As he glanced away from her, Cullen reached out and placed his lyrium kit in a locked drawer within his desk, and he tucked the key into a pocket on his belt. Elodie tried not to dwell on wondering why he kept it so close to himself if he was trying to break from it, but then he cleared his throat and distracted her.

“It’s going to be very difficult to get any work done if you plan on lingering at the edge of my desk all day,” he mused. “Even more so if you keep broaching the subject of flesh.”

He didn’t sound all that upset by the predicament. She wanted to keep this part of him, the part that gazed down at her with unadulterated confidence.

“Cullen,” Elodie whispered, intending to play further. Her voice, however, was soft and breathy. He drew in his lip, training her with an open, willing gaze. Elodie could sense that her heart was still fragile from his previous confession, could sense his might be as well. She needed something more, needed him to give her more, and perhaps they would both be saved. He tilted his head at her, obviously waiting, his expression finally unchecked and raw. “I changed my mind,” she said. “I am feeling a little cold.”

“Are you?” he asked, one hand moving as if to touch her shoulder. He hesitated, closed it into a fist, and then brought it back down to his hip. “My office is a bit drafty, I suppose.”

“Yes,” Elodie could feel her cheeks growing pink, and she struggled to maintain eye contact. “And you know, I could use something to warm me…”

He wasn’t getting it. Elodie closed her eyes, drawing her lower lip in between her teeth, and then opened her eyes to gaze up at Cullen through her lashes.

“Do you think you could help me?” She stepped forward. "Could you warm me, somehow?"

“Ah,” Cullen caught on, exhaling lightly. He tilted his chin down, eyes playfully chiding her. “I take it you don’t want me to lend you a pair of slippers?”

“No.” Elodie tucked a curl behind her ear, unsure of herself. “I was thinking of something I could wrap myself in.”

“Mmhmm. Would lending you my cloak help, by any chance?”

“You’re getting closer, Commander,” she whispered, blinking innocently at him. “But it wouldn’t be what I desire.”

He chuckled.

“And what do you desire of me, Inquisitor?”

“Oh Cullen, so very much-”

She gave a small squeak as he grabbed her. The rest of her words were lost as he pulled her forward before him, her hips sliding his papers back as he positioned her so that she could sit on the edge of his desk in front of him. His hands on either side of her waist, Cullen pressed into her, and Elodie rejoiced in her personal space becoming his. She drank in the smell of crushed violets and clove, of metal and moss, of wax and warmth, and then his hands roamed up to hold her face still. His leather gloves rough and warm against her skin, Cullen kissed her.

Elodie made a noise against his mouth, tiny and desperate, and immediately fought the urge to deepen the embrace. After everything he’d just divulged, everything he’d shown her, she didn’t want to pressure him further. The way he gently nibbled at the edge of her lower lip, playful, was more than she had ever expected. She’d been asking for a simple hug, and even that had been a lofty goal, but this-

Cullen kissed her delicately, brushing his lips over hers in a coaxing gesture until she parted them for him to more easily explore. Every touch of his was deliberate, every drag of his fingers or gentle press of his hips or slide of his tongue was meticulous. Elodie was lost.

He exhaled against her, a rough breath that sent her trembling, and one of his hands moved down to her waist to pull her forward further against him. It was so close to how she had dreamed it, so close to how she wanted him to crush her against the desk, that Elodie couldn’t help it. Her hips seemed to move of her own volition, her legs bending to wrap just behind Cullen’s knee, drawing him forward against her. She cried out, too keyed up from her dreams, from his letters, from how badly she wanted him to reach out and rip the buttons from her blouse.

He broke away gently, and Elodie stifled any other noises she might have made. She let her legs relax, forced herself to loosen her grip on his belts. It must have been too much, and even as her cheeks glowed with arousal and embarassment, she was still accepting. She could tone it down.

He brushed almost apologetic kisses along her cheek, up past her temple, and then drew her to his chest in a warm hug. She collected herself as best she could and reached around to hold him back. They sighed simultaneously, both of them settling within the other’s warmth, and Elodie wondered what thoughts Cullen entertained when they kissed. Maybe it was why he paused now. Maybe he was stopping them here because he could sense that Elodie wouldn’t. Rather comforted by this notion, Elodie moved her feet so that they rested on top of Cullen’s boots, and his breath of laughter tickled her temple.

“One day,” she murmured, “I hope we can try this without your armor.”

“We can’t all run around Skyhold barefoot,” he teased, kissing the tips of her ears through her curls. “Although, I admit, it is tempting. You seem to be thoroughly enjoying yourself.”

She giggled into the fur at his collar, the sensation of his lips on her ears sending pleasant shivers down her spine. Then the tip of his tongue drew a fine line along the arch and Elodie grit her teeth against another moan.

“Maker!” she cried, suppressing a shudder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, immediately drawing back to look her in the eye, his hands gripping her waist. “Was that weird? I don’t know why I wanted-”

“No… no, not weird, I definitely…” she devolved into a sputtering shrug, her cheeks flaring hot underneath his scrutiny. She averted her gaze, trying to think of something to calm down from the sensation of his tongue against the delicate fold at the tip of her ear. Cullen made a noise, a laugh that didn’t quite reach his throat.

“Oh. You really liked that,” he breathed, sounding as if he didn’t believe it.

Helpless, Elodie screwed her eyes shut and nodded.

“That,” she mumbled.  _That could very well become my thing,_ she barely refrained from saying aloud.

“Open your eyes,” Cullen urged, pulling her closer by sliding his hands to the small of her back. Elodie obliged, blinking up at him in full anticipation of playful mirth.

Cullen did smile, but it held such an intimate promise that Elodie immediately moved her eyes to his stretched-thin scar; Elodie wanted to taste it again already. He leaned into her, much like he had on the battlements that very first kiss, and Elodie closed her eyes in anticipation, desperate for his mouth on hers. But his chaste kiss only caught the corner of her parted lips, and then trailed up along her cheek across her vallaslin. Instead of overwhelming her senses, Cullen continued to surprise her and nuzzled Elodie's earlobe with only the gentlest of touches.

“I could grow very fond of kissing this spot,” he whispered, his lips once more tracing up along the shell of her ear. "If you let me."

"You h-have my permission," Elodie begged, her voice barely audible.

Cullen groaned, and Elodie clung to him as he tested her resolve. He kissed at her lobe, then took the soft skin between his teeth. His hands remained at her waist, holding her tight to his chest, and Elodie thought she would go mad from the sensation. She trembled against him, her hips aching much as they had in her dream, but no matter how she rocked against him, Cullen held her still as best he could. Finally, she could take no more. Elodie, still vibrating, pulled away to train him with an almost challenging gaze.

“I spent so much time thinking about the things I missed while I was in the Approach. There was one thing in particular that I did not write to you about, however.”

“Didn’t write…? Elodie, you wrote me of what you missed in almost every single letter,” Cullen said, casting her a look of disbelief down the bridge of his nose.

"Not every letter," she sputtered.

“No? I recall your last five reports, for instance, detailing every type of plant you wanted in the gardens. And for no reason other than that you ‘missed them’. It was a frightful waste of paper.”

“I wanted to make a point,” Elodie answered, struggling to keep a straight face.

“Well, you most certainly did,” Cullen replied. “Elan and Mother Giselle rushed to plant almost all of them during your absence.”

He raised an eyebrow and shook his head at her, his expression almost smug, and Elodie’s breath fled her lungs.

“I meant that I did not write about this,” she said, pulling her curls over one shoulder and shrugging just so, just enough to send the fabric of her shirt sliding loosely off of her shoulder. Adrenaline coursed through her ribcage, her heartbeat too loud in her ears. Her tunic dipped to the side, the soft cloth revealing softer curves beneath it, and Cullen’s mouth dropped open at the sight of her bared neck. She tugged at the lacing, opening it further, exposing her flesh to the cool air of his office.

It was only her clavicle and shoulder that she’d revealed, the curve of her breast barely visible where the thin leather strap lacings lay undone at her collar. However, Cullen reacted as if she had thrown all of her clothes off onto the floor. With both hands, he reached up and straightened her tunic, pulling it over her shoulder once more and holding it in place in his fist as if it were a living thing. Elodie almost laughed, but then she caught his look. He seemed troubled, and he shook his head in admonishment.

“Maker take me,” Cullen murmured, almost to himself. “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Elodie frowned. She thought he liked her neck, thought he had wanted to kiss her there for a very long time. Even thinking that, even remembering how his teeth had felt raking across the sensitive skin there, made Elodie warm all over. Cullen groaned, a soft, gravelly noise in the back of his throat.

“If you only realized what the sight of you does to me…”

“I definitely know the feeling,” she whispered back, her hands moving underneath of his to rest lightly on his hips. Hooking her fingers into the leather there, she pulled him carefully against her with a mischievous grin. He grunted a laugh under his breath, his hand still gently fisted in the fabric over her heart. She reveled in the confirmation of his arousal, the hard proof of his erection hardly unnoticeable when his hips were in such full contact with hers. There was no denying that, even in his protests, Cullen was responding to her teasing in droves.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do this, Elodie," he said.

"No?"

"Believe me, it’s not. My own list I've yet to show you contains a scenario not unlike this very situation, but-” he cut himself off. Cullen’s expression crumbled, and he hung his head. Elodie thought she could feel his knuckles trembling at her chest, but maybe it was her own pulse growing frantic at the thought of having pressured him.

“Cullen,” Elodie said, bringing her hands up to stroke both of his cheeks, her left thumb moving to cover his scar. She could feel him reposition his hips away from hers by a fraction of an inch as soon as she let him go. “ _Gaildahlas_ , look at me.”

He did, his eyes carefully guarded, his pupils blown wide. Andraste preserve her, this man was beautiful, and his expression was not one of distress as she thought at first. It was unconcealed desire, barely held in check, barely kept reigned in. He was struggling against his physical instinct, and she was not helping. Elodie set her jaw and stared him down.

“This is okay,” she whispered fervently, backtracking as gently as she could. “All of this, or none of this, is okay. You can set the pace with me, and I’ll happily follow you however you lead. Even if it means that we stop here.”

He exhaled, closing his eyes, and she brought his head lower. He relaxed under her touch, dipping forward until she could press a firm kiss onto the line of stress between his eyes. It smoothed beneath her lips as he banished all tension from his expression. He sighed deeply.

“This has been a rather unforgettable greeting, you know,” Elodie chuckled against his skin.

“Mmm.” His hands tightened at the small of her back, and she arched into his hug as he moved to rest his forehead against hers. “Next time you return to Skyhold, I’ll be sure to remember this is how you like to be told hello. This time around, I wasn’t feeling much like myself.”

“I can tell,” Elodie said, pulling away in order to watch his response. “But how are you now?”

“Distracted,” he growled, his brief wolfish smile making her giggle. As soon as she laughed, he softened as well, unable to hold his playfully aggressive facade. “But relieved, as well. Thank you for coming to speak with me about... everything.”

“Tell me Commander, do you let all pretty Dalish girls distract you so?”

“No,” he murmured. “Just the one.”

“I see.” She bit her lip, contentment suffusing her at his tone. "In that case, I’ll let you get back to work very soon,” Elodie promised, leaning forward to draw his mouth back down to hers. He brought one hand to her curls, reverently pushing them back away from her shoulder as his hips shifted closer to hers once more. His other hand remained at her collar, but he released the cotton of her shirt with shaky fingers.

Elodie slid her own palm over his, pressing down in hopes that he could feel how fast her heart beat every time they touched, even through his gloves. His hand was so large, Elodie marveled at how much surface area he could cover with it when it pressed flush against her skin. That realization quickened her breathing immediately. She let go of Cullen’s hand after only a pulse-pounding second, afraid to trap him. As soon as she pulled away, he broke their kiss and placed both hands on her shoulders.

“Do you know how nervous I was to speak with you yesterday?” Cullen whispered.

“I have some idea.”

“I had to pace back and forth while reading through reports, else I was liable to drive myself mad. I tried to sink myself into work so that I wouldn’t count the seconds until you walked over the drawbridge.”

“Would you believe that I was nervous too?” she answered.

“Were you really?”

“Yes,” she laughed, a tiny noise. “I… might have even dreamed about what I would say to you upon arriving.”

"And did you dream provide you answers?"

"Ah..." Elodie reveled briefly in how delicious it would be to share the dream's contents with the man in her arms. Instead of doing so, she brought her hands up to rest them gently on his wrists as he kneaded small circles into her shoulder muscles with his thumbs. "In the dream, I just told you that I missed you."

"I missed you, too."

"See," she replied with a grin. "We're good at this, you and I."

“That is a small comfort,” he said. “For some reason, I was worried that speaking in person might be different after your trip. That you might not…” He paused, looking away, his fingers stilling. He cleared his throat. “I can think more easily about what I put on paper than what I say to you aloud.”

“I can tell. And it is different,” Elodie agreed. “But I like getting to hear your voice, even if it’s being used to confess difficult things to me.”

He nodded, and took a careful step backwards, making sure not to crush her toes as she set her feet on the floor beside his. Cullen ran a hand through his curls, pushing them back from his forehead, and gave Elodie a weak smile.

“I’m still a bit raw from all this,” he confessed.

"These things take time," she replied. "We can stop."

“There is a large part of me that does not _wish_ to stop. Which… is why it pains me to ask if we could speak another time,” Cullen said with difficulty. “I might need a moment to recover.”

“Oh. No, of course! I can come back later, if you like,” Elodie said, dropping her hands from his wrists to fidget with tying up her shirtfront. “Or just-”

“I’d love that,” Cullen said, looking simultaneously tired and grateful. Elodie bit her lip, tucking a curl back behind her ear. He was still handsome, even with fatigue drawing his eyes downward. “I imagine that others will want to steal a moment of your time, seeing as you only just arrived last night. But perhaps you'll have time for me later tonight?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, definitely. I can bring the chess board from the garden, too,” she suggested, clasping both hands before her in ill-concealed excitement.

“No need,” he answered, “I have one here. If you want, I could have dinner sent for us so that we could play at our leisure? It’s been a long time since we’ve shared a meal together.”

“You don’t mind if we eat in your office?”

“I tend to take most of my meals here lately anyway. If you’re alright with that,” Cullen said, his voice rather hopeful.

Elodie paused, considering it. He seemed to want to stay close by his work, and she could compromise with that if it meant having him. The thought of leaving him even now was more difficult than she’d imagined it would be.

“That’s more than alright. So… send for me when you're feeling better, then, I suppose?” Elodie blurted, struggling to pull herself from his presence.

“I appreciate it,” Cullen inclined his head in a bow, his hands resting on his sword as she backed away from his desk. It might have been a trick of the light, but he looked pained to see her leaving as well. “And I look forward to tonight, as well,” he added.

“I hope that Hawke wasn't lying about your chess ability, by the way. He told me that you've been practicing on him in my absence, and that you've got a fairly long winning streak under your belt."

"Oh, did he now?"

"He said that you've won almost every time you two have played. To tell you the truth, I was a bit envious of him."

"Envious... of him?"

"Yes."

"For losing?"

"Yes, ser. I find myself wanting to be  _thoroughly_ trounced by you," Elodie said, grinning wickedly before her nerve failed her. With that, she gave Cullen a little wave as she closed the door behind her, relishing the way her Commander covered his mouth with one hand as he burst into embarrassed laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Cullen is a bit of a sucker for spoken Elven pet names, ahem ^^;
> 
> You know what this means for the next chapter, loves. I'm sorry you had to wait so long!!


	29. The Start Of The Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have to go through and add more explicit tags because of this one, folks. Here it is.

Her bag. Standing outside of the tavern, wondering why her shoulders felt so light, Elodie realized she’d forgotten her bag. It held not only Cullen’s gift, but gifts for several other companions she hadn’t gotten around to giving out, and Andraste’s arse she’d forgotten it in his office by his desk!

For a moment, she debated whether or not to go back in herself. She could duck in and out, apologize to Cullen, and just take her bag from where it rested on the floor. The thought made her too nervous. Instead, she opted to send a scout in to retrieve it for her. She needn’t have bothered; Cullen had left directly after her, but the messenger he’d kept in his office had not mentioned where. Absently, Elodie wondered where Cullen went to clear his head within Skyhold’s walls. She wondered if he even stayed within Skyhold’s walls.

Part of her was very tempted to go search for him, perhaps ‘run into him’ should he be down at the stables or taking a brisk walk on the battlements, but Elodie knew that would be selfish. She forced herself to shoulder her bag and go elsewhere, someplace where she could leave Cullen to recover at his own pace.

This was how Elodie found herself alone in the tavern with just one gift left to deliver. The rest were still curing or drying back in her quarters, with the windows cracked to allow the fumes from the resin and glue to waft out and away. Cole’s gift, however, was on the top in the bag. Come to think of it, it was a bit strange that Cole’s would be on top seeing as she’d last handled Cullen’s gift. Wasn’t it?

It mattered not. Elodie moved up to the attic of the tavern, to where Cole was sitting by the window reading a book.

“Hello, you,” she said softly, and Cole looked up without a trace of surprise on his face.

“Do you have any stardust with you, Elodie?”

Unlike her other companions, the ones who’d taken cajoling to get to call her by her given name, Cole had done it automatically. He had known it was what she wanted.

“I…” she paused, a smile tugging at her lips. “I don’t, I’m sorry Cole.”

“That’s a shame,” he said, setting the book down and marking his place with a satin ribbon. “It says here that certain humans have shards of the night sky within their eyes. I assumed elves would be given the stardust for theirs.”

“I wish we were,” Elodie said.

“You had some once, but you gave it away, a piece of yourself should your self be lost.”

“Ah. What book is this?” she asked, trying to keep Cole from exploring too much in her mind. Leaning against the windowsill with him, Elodie took the book from Cole’s fingers and turned it over in search of a title. She found none. There was a beautiful embossment on the front cover, though, in the shape of a flowering tree.

“It’s a collection of many things, many views of the same thing sometimes.”

“It says it’s a book of poetry.”

“Yes. Varric gave it to me. He said that I might enjoy it.”

“Do you?”

“Very much!” Cole said with an innocent, forceful nod. “The words sound like songs without singing, a mental melody all my own. Is… is that the way poetry is supposed to feel?”

“I think so, yes,” Elodie said, and she handed the book back to him. “Good poetry, anyway.”

“And how does bad poetry feel?”

Elodie paused, thinking for a minute.

“Like being sent to bed when you aren’t tired,” she settled on saying. “It makes me feel restless.”

Cole seemed satisfied.

“Did you need something from me?” Cole asked, blinking his eyes back to the present.

“No,” Elodie shook her head, pulling out the gift from her satchel. “I came to give you this.”

“That’s very nice,” Cole said, nodding at the glass. “How do I wear it?”

“It’s not for wearing. Hang it in the window, and it will sing for you whenever it moves,” Elodie explained, already moving to stretch upward with the windchime.

Cole mirrored her, his fingers reaching in order to tap the little glass baubles against one another. Their hollowed tubing clinked delicately, and he gave a small sigh.

“Cullen.”

“B-beg pardon?” Elodie stammered.

“His song. Rather, the song that he thought was him, and therefore forever.”

Elodie stilled, freezing in her movements to better listen to the boy-spirit. Cole gave a breathy sigh.

“No singing now. He is quiet behind the noise. The little bottle makes him shake, but he tests the chains.” Cole trained her with innocent eyes, searching. “You helped.”

Elodie swallowed hard, then shrugged.

“I didn’t do much. I just listened.”

“That’s all he needed,” Cole said, smiling for her now. He reached out to the windchime once more, merely waving his fingers past it. The feathers Elodie had tied onto the delicate strings danced in the breeze his palm left behind, its fragile chime ringing out clear in the dark of the attic.

* * *

“Are you seeing this?” Dorian asked, trying to get a distracted Elodie to turn in her seat the way he was, in order to get a better view of the way Bull was flexing. “He’s liable to burst through his buckles, he continues with that. Eh, Elodie?”

“Mmm?”

Elodie glanced up from her drink, her cheeks warm.

“You aren’t listening to a thing I’m saying, are you, love?” Dorian asked, a fond twitch of his mustache giving away that he was trying not to smile. Elodie opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn’t lie. She shook her head, and Dorian chuckled.

“I’ve got some stuff on my mind.”

“So you said. And then I said I would sit with you and help you think of other things. And then you said ‘oh yes please Dorian I do so love your company’ in just that tone of voice,” the mage quipped. “And yet here we are, with you intent on focusing your anxiety rather than squashing it entirely.”

“My voice is not that high.”

“I was going for breathy,” Dorian said, sounding a bit put-out. “Are you going to drink that whiskey, by the way, or just stare forlornly into it?”

Elodie snorted.

“It’s not going to divine your fortune, kid,” Varric said, sitting himself on Elodie’s other side at the counter. “Believe me.”

She jumped, startled by the sound of his voice after a few weeks without him, and for a second she didn’t know how to respond. But then she saw how Varric held his arms out to her and Elodie burst into a smile. She embraced him tightly, and Varric clapped her on the back between her shoulder blades before they both pulled away.

“I missed you,” she confessed.

“Ah, you’ll get used to me again quickly, don’t you worry,” Varric said with a wink. “By the way, you get my letter?”

“I did.” Elodie smirked despite herself. “I had a really pleasant chat with Hawke, actually.”

“And?”

“He confirmed it. He’s no match for our Commander,” Elodie said with a laugh.

Varric grinned broadly, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it.

“Oh if you only knew.”

“I do so love conversations,” Dorian said from behind Elodie. “I hope someday to be a part of one.”

Varric chuckled, resituating himself so that he could take in both Elodie and the mage beside her.

“How was the homecoming? Getting settled in again?” he asked, glancing at them both.

“I’ve already ordered three new historical anthologies for the library since I’ve returned. Does that count?” Dorian asked, leaning over the counter to wink at the dwarf. Varric gave a nod, then lifted his stein.

“Not enough copies of Hard in Hightown for you, Sparkler?”

“Never,” Dorian answered.

“How about you, Toffee? Did you finally shake the sand out of your boots?”

“Wait, Toffee?” Dorian interrupted, before Elodie could say a word. Stuck in the middle of the two men, Elodie could do little more than turn back and forth as she followed the conversation.

“Yeah.” Varric set his mug down, motioned to Cabot for a refill. “On account of how she’s going to give me a toothache, if she and a certain Ferelden blondie keep being so damn sweet.”

Elodie snorted, hiding her laugh behind one gloved hand.

“Don’t play coy, my dear,” Dorian cooed, “we see how you and the Commander pine for one another. Tell us, have you confessed your feelings?”

He gave her a light-hearted squeeze on her shoulder, a sign that Elodie knew meant he would stop if she put up a boundary. Instead, she glanced at both men in turn, then drained her drink. Sweet and biting, warm as liquid fire, the finger of honey whiskey burned as it traveled down her chest. As Cabot refilled Varric’s mug with ale, he glanced at Elodie’s glass, but she shook her head. One drink was enough.

“We’ve talked about how we feel,” she said, brave and emboldened by the approval she could feel radiating from her friends at either side.

“And?” Dorian asked, almost knocking over his glass of wine in the process. “What then?”

Elodie laughed once more, and Varric hid a knowing smile behind the rim of his mug.

“And he… likes me,” Elodie said helplessly, not sure what else she could say about it. She could feel her face aglow with happiness, and she could feel Dorian’s feigned frustration with her even before he gave her hand a delicate series of taps.

“Details, love, details, we already all _knew_ the poor bastard liked you.”

“You did not.”

“Varric?” Dorian prodded, turning with a look of boredom to their friend.

“It… wasn’t hard to tell,” Varric said, setting his ale down and giving Elodie a shrug. “The two of you aren’t exactly subtle.”

“The way he puffs up when someone mentions how amazing you are,” Dorian provided.

“That’s easily explained,” Elodie laughed. “He’s the Commander of my forces. My successes are his successes.”

“The way he’s opened up since you two have gotten close,” Varric said. “It took me a second to connect the dots, but once I saw the two of you chatting, I did the math. Hard to stay distant when someone draws you into the fold.”

“He did that on his own, not because of me,” Elodie said, weaker this time.

“Did he write you letters while you were gone?”

“He always keeps me updated on troop movements and resource supply lines.”

“But did he _write you_?” Dorian prodded.

Elodie could feel her cheeks warm, but rather than answer, she merely swallowed hard and pricked her ears back towards where Maryden was singing about Orlais.

“If you two blushed less easily, we could pretend like we didn’t notice your feelings,” Dorian commented. Varric nodded and made a noise, something that sounded like a chuckle he hadn’t meant to let escape. The mage turned to Elodie. “It’s not a bad thing. We find you both quite helplessly adorable.”

“Well thank the Maker for that,” she joked. She smiled at the two men at her side, but when Dorian’s smirk turned smokey, when his eyes gained a twinkle that looked suspiciously like mischief, Elodie glanced back down at the bar. She twirled her empty glass on the counter, trying to ignore what questions she felt were coming next.

The singular ice cube in the glass was half-melted already, the warmth from the low fire enough to make even her gauzy tunic feel like a layer too much. Summer was fast approaching, even if the nights remained cool. Outside, she could hear rain beginning to patter on the roof. With the windows closed, it would only be warmer. She pushed her glass further away from herself.

“So…” Dorian raised his wineglass to his lips, but then paused. “Is Cullen any good?”

“Sparkler, c’mon.”

“It’s just a question, Varric, no harm in a question.”

Elodie swallowed hard.

“I don’t- what do you mean, good?”

“You know. _Good._ ” Dorian’s voice was positively a purr, and Elodie couldn’t possibly ignore what he meant by it. Behind them, Bull gave a hearty laugh as he started the Chargers on a drinking song, and Krem yelled for Cabot to bring another round over. It was enough of a distraction for Elodie to regain a bit of her composure.

“He’s a perfect gentleman,” she started to say, but whatever else she had to accompany her protests was lost when a messenger tapped her shoulder.

“Excuse me, ser,” the little runner chirped. “Message for you from the Commander.”

“A-alright,” Elodie turned in her chair, taking the folded bit of paper from the girl.

“Wow,” Varric snorted. “You can’t write that kind of timing.”

Elodie blushed. She ignored the way Varric and Dorian shared a glance over her shoulder, and tried to read it between her palms so that neither of her friends would see.

_Elodie,_

_A storm is coming. I’d hate for you to have to walk back after our dinner in the rain. Maybe we could discuss sleeping arrangements tonight, after I thoroughly trounce you of course._

_Ready whenever you have a moment,_

_Cullen_

“I…” Elodie licked her lips, and she could taste the dregs of sweet liquor on the edge of her breath. She gave a nervous little laugh, tucking the note into her satchel before Dorian could lean over far enough to read it over her shoulder. The messenger was nowhere to be seen, probably because she had enough sense to run before the weather outside turned even worse.

“Let me guess. You have to go?”

Elodie nodded at Dorian. On a whim as she got up to leave, she threw her arms around the mage’s neck. He seemed taken aback at the expression of glee, perhaps at her overexcitement, but then his arms tightened about her waist for a brief moment.

“Don’t let our teasing get to you,” he muttered. “It's out of fondness, I swear.”

Before Elodie could reply, before she could truly register what he had said, Dorian was disentangling himself from her limbs and shooing her off. Varric handed her the satchel she’d let fall to the floor, and Elodie took it with a grateful -if not sheepish- grin.

“Wait. Do…” she glanced at both of the men as they hesitated at the bar. Elodie took a deep breath, then spread both of her palms in front of herself. “Do you think I look alright?”

Elodie waved over her outfit with shaky fingers, then awkwardly put her hands on her hips, then decided to fluff her hair up a bit bigger. The encroaching humidity had given her curls a bursting life of their own, freeing them from her braid for the most part, and her bangs were not cooperating. She could try to replait her mass of tresses? In a quick motion, she’d tugged the braid free and begun preening, and Dorian stepped down from the stool as Varric held out his hands.

“Don’t worry, you’re fine-” Varric reassured her, but then Dorian interrupted.

“Here, let me have a look at you.”

Elodie paused in her ministrations, her hands half-tangled in her curls with a braid almost already redone. Dorian plucked her fingers from her hair and forced them to her side, and then he began to straighten her tunic and retie the laces into a prettier, more even butterfly knot. He pulled her tunic lower so that its collar fell open just so, rearranged her belt so that it was slung low about her hips overtop of the fabric, and even brought up his hands to pinch some color into her cheeks. He tied her braid half-done where she had stopped her twisting, its curls bursting forth over her shoulder half-contained.

“There you are,” he said with a satisfied nod. “Just the right amount of disheveled.”

Elodie beamed at him, too happy to be embarrassed, and outside the pattering of the rain seemed to increase tenfold. The skies began a downpour, sheet after sheet of droplets splashing against windows and roof.

“Well, there went all our efforts anyway,” Dorian sighed. “Pity you wore white, though. That won’t leave anything to the imagination once it’s wet.”

As if on cue, a simple scout’s cloak fell with a thump into the center of the room from what appeared to be the attic. Maryden and the Chargers didn’t seem to notice, but Dorian, Varric, and Elodie craned their necks to try to see up to the third floor. From the railing, Cole waved shyly.

"Drop something, kid?" Varric called up.

“That depends. Will it help?”

“It definitely will, thank you,” Elodie said, grabbing it and throwing it about her shoulders. “It’s perfect,” she called up to Cole. With a quick salute to her companions, Elodie left as Dorian and Varric resituated themselves at the bar.

As soon as she opened the door, the candles within flickered. The wind had picked up since the sun had set, or she assumed, and Elodie pulled the door to the tavern quickly shut behind her rather than letting in the chill. The sky had darkened continuously for most of the day, finally opening up on them just around when the dinner bell first rang. It had been just a mist, but now the water droplets were fat and heavy, and the cloak, while mostly sealed, would only remain waterproof for so long.

Elodie ran, her bare feet squishing through the cold puddles of the courtyard. She cut right, moving up the stairs behind the tavern so that she could cut through the towers on her way to Cullen’s office.

 _Ready when you are_.

Oh she was ready. She had dreamed of this moment, anticipated it for what felt like forever. She hoped their teasing and hinting would lead to something more tonight, something to further solidify the confessions Cullen had left hanging between them.

 _He is quiet behind the noise_ , Cole’s voice echoed as she tried to keep her footing on the slick stone. _You helped._

* * *

She was right about to knock on Cullen's door when she heard a crash from within. The loud sound was followed by a long sigh, and a muttered curse she had a hard time hearing through the door. Elodie knocked even as she opened the door to reveal a pile of books and papers at the foot of what was once a bookcase. It looked as if the shelves had all decided to collapse and spill the books, papers, and files onto the floor at her befuddled Commander’s feet.

Cullen glanced up at her unabashedly, a look on his face that said he had no idea what had happened either but that he found it more funny than upsetting, but Elodie could barely register his smile. For the first time since she’d known Cullen, he was standing before her in a simple shirt and trousers. No jacket. No armor. No cloak. She could see a glimmer of chest hair low in the _v_ of his shirt collar. She could see his forearms, since he had rolled the fabric to his elbows. His every movement, his every bend, she could see the flex of his muscles beneath his skin.

She could bite down on his flesh, if she held his neck to her lips. She could make him feel just as delectable a sensation as he bestowed upon her every time his teeth connected with her flesh.

Elodie blinked away rain droplets as a particularly strong gust of wind blasted behind her and stirred the papers within Cullen’s office. It snapped her out of her reverie long enough to enter his office and pull the door shut behind her. As she yanked it hard to make sure it was in place, she looked up and saw that the door had a latch lock.

“Do… you want me to lock the door?” Elodie asked, gesturing to it as if Cullen couldn’t tell what she meant. She flushed, nervous. Her hands were shaky. Cullen was bent over as he picked up papers, and he looked up with a nod.

“Yes, actually, that would be quite helpful. The wind already blew it open once before you arrived.”

“Has the wind been that strong?”

“Just with that door. No trouble on the leeward side, so far.” He pulled the long wooden plank of the topmost shelf from the now-busted case with a wrenching motion. It looked like the shelf had snapped down the middle from the weight of how many volumes of hardbacks Cullen had piled onto it. “Blasted thing,” he muttered, setting the plank aside with a clatter.

“Might have been time for a new one anyway,” Elodie said, setting her satchel down out of the way and shaking her cloak free of water. “I always felt that one looked rather small compared to your desk.”

“You may be right.”

“Let me help you with that,” Elodie said, and she bolted the latch while shedding her cloak in one flurry of a motion. Cullen seemed intent on waving her off, but Elodie froze before she made it halfway across the floor.

“What?” Cullen asked, his eyes widening to mirror her expression of horror. “Did you forget something?”

“No, no. I just… I don’t have shoes on and I walked through so many puddles on my way here. I’ll get your papers wet.”

“Is that all?” Cullen asked, smiling. He held out a hand, and Elodie could see the golden hairs on his forearm glinting in the soft wash of candlelight. “Come here. They’re not so important as all that.”

She obeyed, dropping her cloak to the floor in a heap. Her preening forgotten, eyes held captive by her Commander, she made her way across the floor in slow, deliberate steps.

“I can get you a towel, if you’d like?” he suggested.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” she replied, certain that the warmth coursing through her veins at his proximity would overheat her and dry her skin in no time. When her hand found Cullen’s, he gripped it tightly and pulled her forward into an embrace, and Elodie desperately tried to catch a glimpse of her wrist.

Purple. Thank the Maker.

“It’s good to see you,” he murmured, giving her a tight hug.

“It’s nice right? I’m only a messenger away!”

“A dangerous thing to grow accustomed to,” Cullen said.

She hummed some semblance of a reply and pressed the length of her body fully against Cullen’s, her arms sliding about his shoulders. She was greedy, and she could not deny herself any longer; her hands roved over every expanse of skin that he normally hid away from her, every inch of him that he normally kept covered now free for her explorative touches to tease. Whereas Cullen held her in a simple embrace, she moved with him as if he were a patch of grass and she a mabari, a metaphor she’d used once with him before. She even nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck, positively aglow with the smell of violets surrounding her.

At first, he seemed to not believe that she was moving as she was. She could tell he had just expected a hug, not this wriggling Elodie was doing. Cullen gave a helpless laugh, as if she was tickling him, but then his hands found her waist and he began to move as well. His lips found her temple. As Elodie gripped his shoulders, sighing into his neck, Cullen’s fingers dug deep, soothing lines down the length of her back. His chin nestled into the curve of her neck, his teeth grazed along her jugular, and Elodie traced circles along the back of Cullen’s nape.

He touched this spot often when he was nervous. Did it grow warm when he was embarrassed? Was it a sore point of tension? An idea blossomed in Elodie’s mind just as Cullen sighed deeply against her.

“I’m feeling much better about all of this,” he whispered, a tiny confession, one Elodie treasured immensely. She pulled back, leveling him with what she hoped was visible gratitude in her eyes. Before he could say anything further, she brought a hand to his cheek and temple, checking his temperature.

“You feel feverish again,” she commented, and Cullen searched her gaze for what would be an appropriate response. "Are you tired?"

He looked as if he wanted to tell her that he wasn’t. He looked as if he wanted to roll his eyes. But he also looked as if, more than either of those responses, he was inordinately soothed by the touch of her cool fingertips.

"I feel better now that you're here," Cullen said.

An evasion. A very tactful one, but an evasion nonetheless. Elodie sighed and motioned for him to sit down in one of the smaller chairs to the side of the room, keeping one hand at his neck while she did so.

“What?” he asked, his hands settling over the small of her back.

“Go sit down,” Elodie murmured, hoping her voice held a hint of a promise within.

She was nervous, her pulse desperate and fluttery against her ribs, but without his armor she could feel that Cullen was too. It steeled her, this mutual excitement they shared. Without another word, Cullen shifted and began to move towards his desk.

“Not there,” Elodie whispered. “The chair behind your desk is too big. Sit in one of those.”

“Are we foregoing the cleanup, then?” he asked, but Elodie was not paying attention. She cast her eyes towards the other two doors and confirmed that they were locked, their latch drawn into its hilt, before she moved with Cullen to where a ladder led up to his quarters.

“For the moment,” she answered. “Now sit, please.”

She was grateful for the warmth encapsulated in Cullen’s office. She shivered not from the cold, but from anticipation, as Cullen sank to the chair facing away from her.

“What are you plotting, I wonder?” he murmured.

“Nothing untoward, I can assure you, Commander.”

With one hand on either shoulder, Elodie began to massage firm circles into his deltoids. He tensed with a grunt, the pain that usually came with touching deep tissue causing him to flinch and resist. Because of this, possibly because of his inability to contain his moans, Cullen tried to tell her it was not necessary.

“You really don’t have to do this,” he whispered. “I’m fine.”

But Elodie shushed him, speaking in Elven the way her healer did, back when Elodie sought relief from her back pain in her aravel.

“ _S_ _hh… haminas mar’tarlavin, gaildahlas._ ”

“Wha-” the rest of Cullen’s question was exhaled in another long, low groan as Elodie pushed and pulled tension from his shoulders with practiced fingers. The noise thrilled her, sent pleasure shooting from where her skin held contact with his all the way down her spine. She shivered, aching to slip her hands beneath his shirt to explore further.

“Relax,” she whispered. _“Tela’nuan mar.”_

He couldn’t understand her when she reassured him, but he trusted in her tone. His shoulder ceased to tense, his muscles only jumping reflexively when she dug too deep. Elodie worked with practiced precision, deliberately targeting where she saw him correct himself the most: his shoulders and back. Whenever he seemed to be having a difficult time, he would pull his shoulders back even more rigid, would stand as straight as he could so that nobody would second guess his position of power.

And he was here, now, melting in Elodie’s hands as she worked his muscles loose and pliant beneath her fingers.

Massage was something she was good at, but something she hadn't done in what felt like ages. It just... wasn't really necessary. She had learned how to do this for her fellow hunters, back when she would lead them on long chases in order to test their resolve and endurance. After so much running, dodging, or sneaking, their muscles would tense and cramp up. She had learned to milk the ache from her fellow hunters’ limbs, and it was what she did now for her Commander. It was the reason she had asked Josephine to find someone for Skyhold; if she could do this for herself after a lengthy trip, she would.

She grew daring after Cullen began to relax under her palms. As she rubbed the ache from his muscles, she slid her fingertips just barely beneath the collar of his shirt. Deep burgundy, sturdy cotton, it was a shirt that suited him but would still look better crumpled on the floor. Her hand delved deeper. It was easy for her to push the fabric aside and caress the top of his chest with fluttering hands, easy for her to pretend as if it wasn’t arousal that spurred her, as if it were merely a routine part of the massage to seek out the curved indent where his pectorals knit above his sternum. Cullen bit back a groan, arching into her touch, and Elodie dipped her head low to kiss his temple. His eyes were closed, his lips parted, and Elodie watched in fascination as his hands clenched into fists as they rested on his knees.

He wasn’t going to move until she spurred him on. The man was about to let her explore everything, or nothing, whatever she chose.

Her hand seemed to move by itself. Down further, down across the dip of his chest, down along the line that would lead her to his taut belly, then back up again as soon as she felt his breathing hitch and catch as if he were on the brink of begging. Her fingers traced new paths as her other hand remained at his shoulder. With one firm hand, she pulled at his deltoid; with the other, she dragged short fingernails lightly across Cullen’s torso.

Soft. The hair she caught in her hands was soft. Better than any dream she’d had. Elodie gave a little gasp, the sound echoing back from Cullen’s temple, and he turned at the noise. His hand came up to tangle in her curls and pull her lips to his, the chair back separating them from one another’s arms. She moved to its side to better reach him, all while she kept her hands inside the collar of his shirt. Elodie tensed, dipping her arms low so that her nails could scratch against his ribs, and Cullen sputtered a laugh against her lips. She smiled in response, repeated the gesture, and Cullen thrashed.

“Now wait a moment. Commander Rutherford, are you ticklish?”

“Not at all,” he growled into her mouth, and Elodie scoffed.

She tried to reach down with her other hand to test her theory, but he twitched once more and made to grab at her hands. The harder she tried, the more he smiled against her; the lighter her touch, the more it seemed to agitate him. The laughter she drew from him with every poke of her fingers was different from the noises he’d given her before, more youthful, so very playful, and she realized belatedly that he was talking through the giggles.

“-warning you, Miss Lavellan,” he gasped between laughs.

“You said you’re not ticklish, so this shouldn’t bother you at all,” she teased, kissing along his shoulder. "If you admit you're ticklish, well, that would be very different."

Her hands, in all their movement, had undone his collar further, giving her more ease of access to his chest that she took full advantage of. But then Cullen shifted, and Elodie had to scramble to keep her feet from flying out from under her.

Cullen grabbed at one of her shoulders, her waist, and in a twirl that left Elodie dizzy, he brought her crashing down into his arms. She fell, rather gracefully she thought, across Cullen’s legs, and he dipped her low to continue kissing her. Elodie moaned, her hands freed from his shirt, but when she tried to bring them up to caress his cheek Cullen caught her wrists. Both of her hands pressed together, almost as if she were praying, were trapped by Cullen's large palm. He held them tightly, with a firmness that was not to be argued against.

“Am I not allowed to touch you now?” she teased, bucking against him in feigned unrest. "Just because I found out your little secret?"

He grinned, pulling back to get a good look at her.

"Your hands are not to be trusted, miss," he growled, his scar white and his canines flashing in unabashed happiness. It was such an open expression that Elodie could only laugh in response and relax further against Cullen's chest.

The way she was sitting, draped across his lap and leaning into the crook of his elbow with both hands before her caught in his hand, was particularly delightful. Had she not been so keyed up, Elodie would have argued that this was a very peaceful, almost content position to find herself in.

But she could feel pinpricks of light dancing beneath her pelvis, could feel every stroke of his skin on hers as if it were electrified. She was not content, not by a long shot.

Elodie grinned wider, and her wrists relaxed as Cullen’s fingers sought better purchase about them. She could break this grip easily and they both knew it, but she did nothing but luxuriate at his touch. Her relaxation was her consent, unvoiced for the moment but palpable between them. In turn, Cullen’s grip loosened as well, his movements mirroring hers. His palms were so big, his fingers so deft. Elodie blushed as she tried not to imagine what else those hands could do.

Insanely, it was almost as if Cullen entertained the same thought. His eyes darkened, his expression hungry and primal. A twitch, a bounce of Cullen's leg, and Elodie was jostled to a more seated position so that Cullen’s arm would be free to move around her back. Cullen’s hand, the one not holding her own, was sliding around her waist to the front of her breeches. He turned Elodie in his lap so that she was facing away from him, with her shoulderblades flush against his chest. With his left hand, he brought her wrists back behind his neck.

“Hold onto me,” he whispered.

She nodded, willing to agree to anything if he ordered her in that exact tone of voice, and he let go of her wrists. Cullen trailed his fingers gently down past her forearms, past her elbows, light across the curve of her armpit and then further down against the lines of her ribs. Her hands clasped behind his neck, tangling in the curls there, yearning and excited. Cullen’s lips found her neck, sucking soft kisses into her pulseline, and his hands began to explore similar paths as the ones Elodie had marked him with. His palms grazed over the tops of her breasts, down past their meager swell, sliding across her sternum to dig into her ribs. Since she wasn’t ticklish in the slightest, the gesture only carried arousal with it, and Elodie tried to keep her hips from bucking in response.

While one of Cullen’s hands continued to stray across her torso, the other found the lacing at the front of her breeches. Elodie swallowed hard, a bit surprised at how quickly he was moving, but Cullen did not undo them. He mirrored the massages he lavished against her breasts, this time over her hips and the hem of her trousers. The fact that he played with her belt loops, freeing them only to ignore them, only further heightened her desire for him to tear her clothes open. He gripped at her bones, pulling softly at her body this way and that as if he could hardly believe she was real and here and _his_. Elodie moaned at the thought and circled her hips, her bare feet kicking against the floor so that she could get comfortable in his lap.

It was obvious that Cullen was affected. His erection pressed insistently into her hip, and he let out a tight groan of his own when she moved against it. Elodie repeated the motion, and both of his hands clenched down on her thighs.

“Easy,” he whispered into her neck, and before she could reply or laugh or sigh, Cullen caught her earlobe between his teeth. She cried out as his tongue traced a path up along the shell of her pointed cartilage, and when his hands moved brazenly over her stomach, Elodie was lost.

Skin against skin beneath her shirt, his palms moving in lazy strokes at her belly before coming up to cover her breasts, Elodie keened in response to the shock and beauty of Cullen’s slowness. It hadn't been like this, even in her imagination. She could feel every clench of his knuckles, every callous he bore from sword hilts and shield grips. Maker, how she wanted to lick across the lifeline that cut along his palm. She made to take her hands down, and his gestures immediately stilled.

“Don't let me go,” he breathed.

“I want to touch you too,” Elodie replied, but she did as he asked and kept her arms lifted. She wouldn’t say it, not aloud, but having him command her was deeply affecting. As she circled her hips once more, her thighs rubbed together at the apex and her slickness gave her just enough friction to tease her into an even more peaked state.

“Give me this,” Cullen whispered. “If you touch me now, I don’t know if I could bear it.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Elodie responded, pressing her hips gently back into his.

Cullen groaned, bending his head low to kiss against the curve of her neck.

“I know. But I want this moment to last.” He scraped a canine against her jugular, as if illustrating the point. When she shivered in response, he added, “If you touch me back, I don’t know how long I could restrain myself.”

“There’s a lovely thought,” Elodie said, a throaty chuckle on the back of her words, but she did not loosen her grip against Cullen’s neck. She kept her hands there, her arms up by her shoulders, her breasts perked beneath his palms. Cullen hummed appreciation into her neck, up along the soft skin beneath her ear, and when his tongue darted out once more to claim her curved cartilage, Elodie gave an immediate cry.

“You say it’s lovely now,” he whispered, his fingers finding the pebbled peaks of her nipples through the thin slip of satin bound across her chest. “But didn’t you tell me that you loved teasing? That you loved the anticipation.”

“I-I meant,” Elodie swallowed back a moan as Cullen’s lips dragged along the length of her ear and back down to her shoulder. “I didn’t mean-”

Cullen’s index fingers flicked against her flesh, the tight buds of her breasts oversensitive from the chill of the room and the heat of his hands. Elodie cried out just as a low roll of thunder boomed loud on the horizon. She didn’t know what she was arguing against; her heart pumped flames of desire through her core, every beat of it sending a thrum of energy that she could feel curling to the tips of her toes. She wanted to be denied, it was true. She wanted Cullen to draw her pleasure out, excruciating in his refusal, and for him to test her resolve until she broke in his hands.

“It’s a shame,” Cullen breathed.

“What is?” Elodie asked, her breathing quick and desperate as his fingers tightened over her flesh.

“I had entertained a fantasy while you were gone, of showing you the stars while I explored your every curve.”

Elodie could do nothing but whimper. A beautiful sentiment, paired with the idea that Cullen had fantasized about her. Her knees were weak at the thought.

“Go on,” she begged, her hands tracing lines through his curls.

“I found a new place, somewhere private, where we would be able to see them easily as we lay together.” His hands were moving again, fingers flitting nonchalantly over her tender flesh as he confessed in a voice like smoky incense. “I would have you looking at the sky while I tasted you for the first time. ”

Elodie’s thighs clenched at the thought of Cullen between them, and he seemed to flex against her hip through his breeches as well. She let out a shaky breath, caught up in the picture he was paiting for her with his words.

“ _V_ _era em su tarasyl_ ,” she breathed, amazed at how the phrase finally held meaning to her. She’d known of it back in the Free Marches, had used it once before in passing but never seriously. Never to ask for the intimacy she begged for now, never to insinuate the craving she hinted at in this moment. It was an idiomatic phrase, one that led to sheets and tangled limbs, but one that also sounded like vague poetry to her ears. “Cullen-”

 _Take me to the sky_.

Elodie’s plea seemed to transcend the language she used. Cullen’s fingers clutched at her, and the satin covering over her breasts slipped sweetly against her nipples as his palms warmed her flesh. She mewled, helpless, the rest of her words lost on the wind as thunder rolled outside. Her hands pulled his mouth harder to her neck, her hips jerked up of their own volition, and Cullen gave her more.

“Will you come undone for me now?” he whispered, nipping at her skin with tense little bites. “Even if I don’t have any stars to offer you?”

“Yes,” she begged. “Yes, please.”

One of Cullen’s hands slipped beneath the satin covering, coming into full contact with her breast for the first time. They simultaneously gasped, their moans perpetrating the others’, and Cullen’s fingers began to knead just above Elodie’s heart. His other hand roamed low over her belly, tracing lines above the hem of her pants. It was an overload to Elodie's receptors, too much of a sensation for her to come to grips with and yet at the same time too slight for her to feel satisfied. She wanted his hands all over her, all at once, never ending. She let out a frustrated, guttural groan.

“Would you like to hear a segment of my list?” he asked, his voice rough on her pulse.

She nodded, and could not discern if it was Cullen’s breathing or hers that sounded so lovingly distraught.

“I think about how it would feel to have your legs about my shoulders,” he whispered.

Elodie gave a urgent gasp, unable to formulate more of a response. Cullen between her legs. What a galvanizing thought.

“I’ve watched you fight," he continued. "You’re incredibly flexible, your stance beautifully balanced. I want to be the one to unbalance you.”

“You'd dare spar me?” she teased, her words shifting to mere panting as his index finger and thumb tightened around the bud of her nipple and gave it an experimental tug. It toed the line of pain, gorgeous and glimmering and wretched all at once. Elodie whined with pleasure. “Be careful. Sensitive.”

“Right, sorry,” Cullen said, a tone of contrition returning briefly to his words. He sighed, gentling his touch, his fingertips rough enough to elicit a gradual moan from Elodie but not sharp enough to cause her actual torment. It was perfect.

“You want to unbalance me?” Elodie asked, turning to his lips. “Would you have me hold onto you, then? Would you hold me steady, _ma’av'in_?”

Rather than continuing, Cullen captured her mouth in a kiss, drawn out and tender and infinitely deeper than she expected. She craned her neck to take his tongue in against hers, her moans loud in her ears as they echoed. Her eyes closed, she could barely make out the glow of the candles dimming with every breeze that slipped through the crack of the arrowslits. A brief, bright flash, presumably lightning, and then Elodie cried out harshly against Cullen’s lips.

His hand, the one not teasing at her breast, had moved low to cup her sex over top of her breeches. Gliding above the fabric, his knuckes worked against her slickness with an eager, unassuming rhythm. Even though it was slower than the pace she used on herself, Cullen’s fingers kept a tempo that built an edge to Elodie’s pleasure. She began to climb, reaching for her peak as she fisted her hands in his hair. She kissed him harder, encouraging him, letting her legs fall open as her cheeks burned with the lewdness of it.

Cullen rewarded her with more fingers spread along the apex of her thighs, with more friction and more focus. He seemed to know not to limit his movements to a small area; almost greedily, he massaged beautiful paths up and along the outer edge of Elodie's folds, her flesh contracting instinctively in response. Elodie marveled at how different his technique was from her own; when she touched herself, she used two fingers, quick strokes, definitive and short in a back and forth motion that never failed to bring her to a shuddering crest. Cullen was loose and moderate, as if he was enjoying the act of touching her more than trying to get her to reach a climax. It made his every touch, his every contouring trace, his every press against her flesh that much more delectable.

His tongue danced across hers, pulling her within him in an intimate invitation, and Elodie kissed him back just as arduously. She had no idea what sensation to keep at the forefront of her mind. His knuckles as they alternated between twisting and flicking and pulling softly against her taut nipples? His lips and tongue as they drowned her in a drunken sweetness she could barely endure? His palm as it pressed against her most sensitive pearl through her breeches, paired with his fingertips tickling against the soaked fabric?

She whimpered, unable to decide. Her arms fell limp against his neck, her body relaxing almost petulantly over his as Cullen continued his borderline torturous explorations.

It seemed to cue something within him, as if he had been waiting for her to slacken in such a way before adding more sensations to his caresses. Gentle and deliberate, Cullen wriggled his fingers through the lacings of Elodie’s breeches and undid them with a quick pull.

Never once did his kiss falter. The Commander who had stammered out a request to be left to his own thoughts earlier that morning had regained his confidence, and there was no hesitance in the way his fingers roved over her skin. Both hands joined one another at the apex of Elodie’s thighs, tugging down her breeches to reveal her smallclothes beneath. Elodie helped, briefly bringing her hips up so that Cullen could wriggle her pants down further, but then her neck began to hurt. She turned from his kiss, glancing down, and the sight sent another volt of pleasure through her abdomen.

Both of Cullen’s hands were spreading her apart, a soft, intimate gesture that should have made her clamp her thighs shut instinctively out of politeness. But Elodie was only further provoked, her thighs falling away from one another as her feet sought purchase on the stone floor to make it easier for Cullen to access her every fold. One of his palms stroked up and down the length of her inner thigh, pulling the muscles there, opening her legs for him further but also touching and feelings and _indulging_. She shuddered, thanking the Maker she wasn’t ticklish, as the blade of his palm dragged against the inner curve of her hip and inched ever closer to her most sensitive place.

His other hand moved to cover her sex once more. His palm rolled deliciously against her pelvic bone, slow and kind. She had told him she was sensitive, and he seemed to be taking it to heart as he unraveled her pleasure. His fingertips traced designs through her slick wetness, circles and swirls that brought her tingles of ecstatic pleasure, and Elodie could feel that she had soaked entirely through her smallclothes. When her breathing quieted, when she listened for it, she could hear the proof of her arousal echoing back to her with every thrust of Cullen's probing fingers against the fabric. For the moment, Cullen merely slid two fingertips up and down her entire length, up and down, until his fingers were absolutely covered in her juices. With each stroke, his palm ground a lazy half-moon onto the hooded pearl of her clit, just enough of a tease to cause Elodie’s breathing to catch in her chest.

She noticed her groans were deeper now, her noises coming harder as they escaped her throat. She was beginning to hold her breath to draw out the pleasure, exactly as she did when she was bent over her pillows and imagining Cullen positioning himself behind her and spreading her open-

Elodie cried out at the imagery, at the fact that it was truly Cullen’s fingers delving into her most personal of places and not just her imagination. He rocked up against her, his fingers replacing his palm as he began to circle her clit through the fabric of her clothing. The sensation of his smaller, defter fingertips replacing the broader pleasure of his palm had Elodie at his mercy. Both hands now, one pulling apart her smallclothes, the other delving into her folds to trace up with clever fingers too large to be so beautifully delicate, both hands pulling and massaging and acting as one entity of gratification.

“Faster,” she begged, and his fingers moved in tighter circles across the hood of her bud, along the length of her nerves. Swollen, greedy, soaked, Elodie could feel the cool air of Cullen’s office kiss against her sex as he yanked her smallclothes to the side, and it forced another cry from her throat. Cullen’s cock pressed into the cheek of her arse, insistent and rigid, and she could bear it no longer.

Letting her hands drop, Elodie turned in Cullen’s lap and recaptured his mouth with hers. Her hand at either side of his face, she tilted her head and gave in to her most shameful of urges. Her hips rocked up against Cullen's hands, her thighs flexing so that she could fuck herself more easily against his fingertips, and her tongue traced every groove along his upper lip.The power shifted visibly, the dynamic changing and launching itself into a darker, hungrier territory. Their mouths were parted against one another, thirsty and seeking and sloppy, and Elodie repositioned herself so that she was straddling Cullen’s cock through his breeches. His hands forced her own breeches down further so that she could stay atop him, but Cullen never broke their kiss. Even when he had to lean up to keep contact, he arched with her as she kicked her trousers down about her knees. He made little noises against her, hopeless and suddenly at her mercy, and it drove her wild. She took his hand, the one whose fingers he had moistened against her flesh, and brought it up to their mouths.

Breaking their kiss, Elodie opened her eyes and waited for Cullen to open his. When he was watching her, breathless, she opened her mouth and took his index finger against her tongue. Licking at it, sucking her juices from its whorled tip, Elodie lavished attention on Cullen’s finger in pure ardor. She could taste salt, musky warmth, and a faint sweetness. Cullen’s expression was one of distraught, guilty pleasure, as if she was taunting him with a fascination he was loathe to enjoy as much as he was. Before she could ask if he was alright, he leaned forward and licked at his own fingers with her, his tongue catching soft against hers as he sucked the remains of her juices from his own hand. The intimacy shocked a moan from them both, but neither pulled away.

As if they were of one mind, both Elodie and Cullen let their hands fall to their hips in order to undo the last bits of fabric that separated them. Tugs, ones that seemed to knot his lacings further, then awkward shambling as Elodie pulled her breeches and then her smallclothes over one leg, and then another. She almost ripped them in the process, a thought that wasn’t exactly a bad one. Cullen growled a curse, his fingers clumsy and trailing silvery slickness about the front of his breeches. Elodie leaned forward, resting her lips against his shoulder, and reached down between them to help.

With a snap, the knot came undone and both of them fumbled to pull Cullen free of his trousers. Her hand found his shaft, and at her touch Cullen let out a low cry. One of his hands snapped to her wrist, holding her still, and Elodie's grip inadvertently tightened around his cock's tip.

“Please,” he whispered against her curls, “not too quickly.”

“Trust me,” Elodie answered, relaxing her grip and moving her hand up and down the hard, satin-soft length of his cock. He grit his teeth against another moan, even though Elodie only used the most feather-light of all touches. She was panting, shaking, and still she managed to whisper, “I want you so much. I never want this to end.”

“Maker’s breath.”

His fingers found her folds as she began to stroke him, and he opened her with matched urgency. As Elodie moved her hand along his impressive length, Cullen dipped his middle finger slowly into her opening, coaxing and nudging and somehow still gentle. She cried out at the intrusion, a yelp of pleasure, and his thumb found her clit with nimble ease. Elodie’s fingers tightened about Cullen’s shaft, and he responded by slipping his ring finger into her folds as well. An awkward angle for him, to be sure, she could tell by the way he barely moved within her. He stretched her easily, her slickness aiding in his quest to bring her higher. The width of his knuckles, the way he curved his fingers, the delicious bliss of it, brought Elodie closer and closer still to a peak she hadn’t known she was seeking. She shuddered, resting her forehead on Cullen’s as she began to fuck herself on his hand.

She could feel his body reaching for hers, and with the pad of her thumb she swirled the bead of precum that she had milked from him. Cullen’s hips twitched, and he whispered a plea that she didn’t catch. His fingers curved further, seeking out the wall of flesh that held bundled nerves of ecstasy within her, and Elodie rocked to help him along.

He slid within her against her most sensitive place, his thumb flicking her own juices across her pearl, and Elodie pumped him faster, desperate to force more cries of pleasure from the man that was building her into a frenzy. Finally, she could stand it no longer.

“Let me ride you,” she begged, opening her eyes to gauge his reaction.

Cullen seemed to realize what she had said only when Elodie raised up and held the tip of his cock against her slick flesh. His pupils blown wide, his lips parted and kissed raw, he nodded. Slowly, painstakingly slowly, she lowered herself down on Cullen’s shaft, taking him in as his girth stretched her futher. She hadn’t allowed him to tease her with his fingers for as long as she’d fantasized about, hadn’t been able to stand any more of her own pleasure without bringing him along on the journey with her. But it had been enough to prepare her for him, nonetheless. Cullen threw his head back, his hands finding her waist and digging in almost painfully as she took him into herself. His fingers were wet from his ministrations, painting lines of her own arousal across her hipbones.

“Maker take me,” he bit out through clenched teeth, his cock flexing inside of her as Elodie seated herself fully onto its hilt. She gave a groan, the tender flesh just within her already edging her close to her release with every minute twitch Cullen gave involuntarily.

“Can I-”

“Don’t move,” he ordered, his hands moving about her waist, as if he were trying to find a way to regain control in the situation. There was none to be had. Elodie had better leverage in the chair. Her knees were resting against the arms of it, her feet tucked up as she straddled Cullen’s lap, and as she opened her eyes once more to take in the picture of it all, the storm outside raged on.

Thunder clapped loudly just beyond the horizon, loud enough to make Elodie yelp and cling to Cullen’s shoulders even tighter. He chuckled mirthlessly.

“You’re moving,” he warned.

“I can’t help it,” Elodie whispered as she rolled her hips in a long, slow circle. “You feel…” her words faded away in lieu of moans, noises she could no longer keep to herself. Outside, the sheets of rain pounding down upon the battlements created a blanket of noise, and it helped Elodie feel even less self-conscious.

Cullen’s hands gentled, loosening their grip on her and allowing her more freedom to rock as she pleased. He seemed to have gotten ahold of himself, to have calmed, but it was hard to tell without his eyes open. Elodie mused that his expression was almost pious, as if he were praying. She leaned in to kiss him as she gyrated on top of his lap, and she felt Cullen’s lips move almost imperceptibly against hers. She stilled.

“Cullen…” Elodie pulled away a fraction in order to get a better look at him. He opened his eyes, a subdued look in those twin hazel pools. Elodie almost laughed. “Are you praying?”

He swallowed hard, caught in the act, and Elodie felt a swell of emotion within her breast. Both of their tunics were half-open, Elodie’s pants still caught on one of her legs, and she realized just how quick this was happening. One moment, she was rubbing the tension from Cullen’s shoulders. The next, he was praying for enough self-control to keep from climaxing too soon. It was endearing, unbelievable, and she was overwhelmed with a need to make this good for him.

Something stirred within her, a dormant protectiveness that seemed to ignite into a burning flame whenever Cullen tried to endure. She settled further onto his lap, her knees growing a bit numb from the way she was propped up in this position, and began to roll his tunic up over his abdomen.

“Lift up,” she whispered, and he obeyed.

She pulled the burgundy cloth up and over his curls, peeled it away from his arms, and shuddered with pleasure when she could see his nipples harden in the chill of the office air. Not to be outdone, she began to unlace the rest of her own tunic, pulling the leather free of each loop down her middle. To her infinite amazement, Cullen reached down and began to slowly unbuckle her belt as she worked. He helped her undress, watched her in rapture, until she had thrown her shirt down to join his in a crumpled heap on the floor.

“If you’re cold-” he started to say, his voice rough, but Elodie cut him off with a kiss. As she leaned forward, distracting him with her tongue and teeth, Elodie reached behind herself and began to undo the satin band that bound her breasts. With a whisper of fabric, the satin fell to the stone and Elodie pressed herself fully against Cullen’s bare chest.

Their noises escaped simultaneously, their hips moving as one. It was so definitively _right_ , and even though Elodie could barely voice it, let alone recognize it, a sense of belonging clicked into place. A part of her soul, homesick for touch and connection she had never held, felt like it was being embraced as Cullen's hands covered the small of her back. They seemed to both follow the same instinct as they began to slowly thrust against one another in the chair. Cullen’s hands moved to Elodie’s knees, massaging the muscles there and then upwards over her thighs. She grew braver as they kissed, Cullen’s every noise encouraging her almost as much as his responsive movements, and Elodie began to drag more and more of his length from her with every thrust. Deeper, she took him deeper every time, just barely sustaining their rhythm and keeping things slow.

She could never have imagined this. She was making love to Cullen. In his office, with a pile of messy papers behind them and a storm raging outside. She would have laughed at the thought if her breathing wasn't coming in such ragged, mewling moans. Cullen's lips drew hers in between his teeth as he kissed her, his hands roamed over the curve of her hips and then down to rest fully on her arse as she moved, and his hips thrust up into her with a lazy, purposeful restraint that was driving Elodie mad. No matter her cries, he did not increase the tempo. She was being dragged to the line of ecstasy and being made to dangle there, broken, begging,  _unbalanced_. Her hands found Cullen's curls once more, but were never satisfied to rest in one place for long. They sought out the skin of his chest, the hardened peaks of his nipples, the indents of his abdomen, the chiseling of his shoulders. She pulled him against her as she rocked, embracing him with as much of herself as she could.

It wasn’t close enough. She couldn’t hold him close enough. He was here, in her arms, and Elodie could almost cry from wanting him even closer. He shifted beneath her, thrusting up at a slightly different angle, and Elodie cried out in sharp white pleasure. She bucked faster against him, her movements unkempt and desperate. She was close, drawing near to her peak, and getting sloppy because of it. Cullen could sense it, maybe because of her growled moans or the way she was beginning to tighten over the shaft of his cock as she rode it harder and harder; it was his cue.

He pulled her up further, his feet finding leverage on the floor, and Elodie broke their kiss. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t hear anything past the thunderous heartbeat in her ears and in her chest, couldn’t move as Cullen's hands moved to the soft flesh where her thigh met her pelvis. He held her open for him and began to fuck her from below, his pace finally increasing. He was in control now, and he kept a punishing tempo. His strokes were deep, fast, a breaking point. Elodie tightened around him, clutching at his shoulders with shaky fingers, and began to crest in a delicious, glimmering shatter. She registered that she was crying out, begging for more even as she came undone, and she could hear that Cullen was holding back a low cry of his own behind his clenched teeth. Elodie was close, so close, brought wild and undone with such ease, and then the world burst into a million shards of pleasure that pricked and nipped and melted over her every pore. Elodie rode the wave of her pleasure, felt it redouble when Cullen bit down into her shoulder and increased his pace, pumping into her with an urgency that furthered her rapture until she wondered if she was orgasming _still_ or perhaps _again_. Warmth within her, a tightness expanding, and then nothing but glowing satisfaction as the world fell apart in downy bliss.

Cullen slowed his thrusts, his hands relaxing from where they had gripped and parted her thighs with harsh eagerness. Most likely she would have marks for a few hours yet, fingerprints to show proof of Cullen's brief audacity... and she wanted nothing more than to look at them in a mirror with pride. The thought drifted idly through Elodie’s mind as she collapsed onto Cullen’s chest. She laughed at it, a halfhearted giggle that caught in her throat, and she could hear Cullen’s heart beating out a frantic rhythm inside of his chest when she quieted. Elodie readjusted, listening as her own heartbeat calmed in time with his, marveling at their connection still unsevered as Cullen pulled her closer. His hands caressed up and down her spine, his lips soothed kisses over the spot he had bit into the curve of flesh by the base of her neck, and his cock somehow stayed hard even as his seed began to seep out from where they remained connected.

Neither of them gave any indication that they weren’t perfectly satisfied to stay in a heap of limbs on the chair together. And so they sat, haggard breaths growing more and more calm as they relaxed in their mutual afterglow. Cullen caught one of Elodie’s hands, his movements slow and heavy, and he brought it up to his lips with a little sigh. She turned her palm to his cheek and stroked across his stubble with her thumb, and Cullen caught the pad of it with his lips in a tiny kiss.

After a moment though, however blissful it might have been, Elodie shivered. The arrowslits were minimal, but still let in a chill, and she had disrobed them of all their layers. Her breasts and stomach were warm against the Commander’s chest, but she knew he couldn’t be very comfortable like this either.

“Sh…” Elodie cleared her throat, tried again. “Should I move?”

“I like you like this,” he murmured.

“I’m cold,” she whispered against his temple. As if to illustrate the point, she could feel her skin tighten into gooseflesh. Cullen laughed, and as he did his cock flexed within her. They gasped at the same time.

“Did you want to have dinner?” he asked, smoothing her hair back behind her ear.

Elodie shook her head.

“Were you ever really invested in chess?” he murmured, a smile on the edge of his voice.

Elodie paused, thinking, then shook her head again. His hand curved around the nape of her neck, holding her to him, and he gave a little scoff.

“I suppose it wasn’t exactly on my mind either,” Cullen confessed, almost dryly. “Which is how we find ourselves in this state.”

“Do you regret it?” Elodie whispered, leaning up to plant a kiss on his pulse.

It was Cullen’s turn to shake his head.

"Not at all," he whispered.

"Mmm," Elodie said, having fully intended to voice  _me neither_ but finding that she suddenly lacked the energy. Her limbs felt slack and satisfied, even if they were prickled with gooseflesh in the cold.

“We can move up to my quarters, if you like,” he suggested. “That was where I had intended to start all of this, anyway. Before you distracted me so.”

“Good massage, then?”

“You have very deft hands.”

“Oh, Commander,” Elodie purred. “Let's move upstairs so that I can show you just how right you are.”

She did not have to ask him twice. He shifted beneath her, as if steeling himself, and she took it to mean he wanted her to stand. Sensitive, way too sensitive, Elodie moved her legs back so that she could stand and extricate herself from their lovemaking. She sighed at the absent feeling of him leaving her, but took comfort in that his expression mirrored hers.

Eager. Dizzy. Lovestruck.

The final one hit Elodie particularly hard, her heart skipping a beat within her chest. She clenched her teeth against the words that threatened to bubble forth without her permission and began to gather their clothes as Cullen pulled up his breeches. He seemed to be preoccupied trying to lace them around his consistent erection, so Elodie gave him a bit of privacy and turned away. She went to slip her leg through her own pants, but dropped them in favor of haphazardly pulling Cullen's red wine cotton shirt on instead of her own. When Cullen looked up from tying his laces at his abdomen, she caught his gaze with a defiant eyebrow raise.

“Ah. I see you’ve decided to try a new style, Inquisitor.”

“I feel like this color suits me, what do you think?” Elodie asked, twirling in his oversized tunic. It fell open practically down to her navel, leaving very little of her to the imagination, but its sleeves when unrolled hung past her fingertips.

Cullen moved over to her, catching her in a warm embrace.

“I think you should climb up the ladder, Elodie.”

“I’m rather busy right now,” she responded, and to illustrate that fact she traced her hands down Cullen’s bare chest. “So very busy.”

“You should climb up before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you up myself.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that, ser.”

“Are you challenging me?”

“No. Merely saying that you’d lose out on the view of my arse if you carried me,” Elodie shot back, unfazed. He burst into a surprised laugh, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him and he regretted that it hadn’t. She smiled, drinking him in.

“Elodie?”

“Mmm?”

“Was that… were you…” Cullen hesitated, seemingly not sure how to ask her what was on his mind.

“It was incredible,” Elodie said. He relaxed, tension seeping from his brow as he smiled in gratitude.

“You’d tell me if I should do something differently? If it’s too much?”

“I promise,” Elodie murmured, catching his hand in hers as she walked towards the ladder. “You were wonderful, Cullen. I can't wait to hear what else you have in store for me on your list.”

He seemed as if he could barely believe was he was hearing, as if her words were echoes of ones he’d only heard in dreams before now. He swallowed, then nodded, and only then did Elodie turn and catch the ladder rung in her hands to begin her ascent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***My approximation of some Elven***  
> haminas mar’tarlavin, gaildahlas -- relax your shoulders, sweetheart  
> Tela’nuan mar. -- I won't hurt you.  
> *** I try to read through fenxshiral's Dalish Lexicon works on AO3 and their tumblr, as much as possible and as thoroughly as I can. I'm still struggling to grasp it linguistically, but their breakdowns are approachable, fantastic, and if I'm wrong it is definitely not because of any lacking on their part. They gave me all the tools to dig a hole and I probably just patted the dirt a bit frustratedly ^^;;; let's call it 80% ok***
> 
> I don't ALWAYS like breaking up love-making scenes, but this one was too long to contain in just one chapter. I'm going to try to update as soon as I can after this, but it might take me a second! We're almost done with Honey Whiskey, can you believe it??  
> Not giving away how many chapters we have left though ;)


	30. A Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They needed a bit more release, I thought ;)

Elodie had jested about Cullen staring at her arse when she climbed, but she never dreamed he would be bold enough to reach up and pat the back of her thigh when she didn’t move fast enough. It almost stunned her out of her frozen state. She could not help but stay rooted to the spot, staring up at Cullen’s ceiling.

“There…”

“If you’re waiting for me to carry you into my quarters,” Cullen muttered, his palm dragging lengthily down her leg, “it will be difficult, but I can manage.”

“No, no,” Elodie scrambled up, suddenly reminded that she was in the way. She sat on the edge of the ladder up and crossed her legs, curious and more than a bit surprised. As Cullen lifted himself up into his room beside her, Elodie managed to find her voice again. “Cullen?”

“Yes?”

“There is a gigantic hole in your ceiling.”

“Ah,” he laughed, glancing up to where sheets of water bounced off of what looked to be glass. “That.”

“Did you put in this skylight?”

“I did not,” he said, moving over to sit beside her with a small grunt on the floor. He leaned back on his hands, and Elodie was reminded of the first time they spoke after hours back in Haven. They stared up at the heavens now, the sky decidedly less clear. “I found my quarters after you left for Crestwood the first time. They were in shambles, with old piles of wood and canvas lining the room, and then this beautiful hole you see before you."

"Was the bookcase here when you moved in?"

"You know, it actually was," Cullen chuckled.

"No wonder it caved," Elodie said. "We should replace some of your furniture."

"The desk is sturdy enough," he answered. "That's all I need."

"Mmm."

"Regardless, at first I was hesitant to move in. But I liked this... I could see the sunrise from my bed every morning. It was a comfort, to have it open like this. And so, before he left with you for the Western Approach, Dorian helped me with the barrier you see above you.”

Elodie’s head turned at the phrase, but Cullen ignored her with a wry smile. He kept his eyes on the ceiling.

“I had to have it reinforced only once, and Vivienne was kind enough to help me with that when the time came.”

“It’s… not glass?” she asked.

“No,” Cullen held a hand up, almost as if he were about to catch the smattering of raindrops on his palm. "Not quite."

Elodie turned her face back up to the barrier, wishing for the first time in her life that she was a mage. Maybe then she could feel the hum she’d read about, the one it looked like Cullen could feel pulsing through whatever stain of lyrium remained on the inside of his veins.

She held her hand out as if she could, regardless, the pale green glow of her mark beneath her skin casting an eerie shine upon Cullen’s otherwise unlit room. It did not reflect back from the barrier as it would from glass. In fact, Elodie could swear she felt a breeze run across her palm. She shivered and drew her hand away.

“There’s the beauty of it,” Cullen said, and he brought his hand down to cover hers where it fell in the space between them. “It lets me feel the air as if I’m out of doors, but the elements are kept at bay.”

He took a long, deep inhale then, his bare chest rising and falling in ease. Elodie glanced him over, the urge to cover his pectoral muscles with both her hands as he breathed just barely held in check by her last reserves of self-control.

“You like it this way?”

“Very much,” he answered. He met her gaze now, looking a bit ashamed. “It was… where I wanted to show you the stars. When I wrote you the letter about having found us a new spot.”

“Oh.” Elodie flexed her fingers and threaded them through her Commanders’. “You intended for me to stay the night with you if we had a clear sky?”

“Well…” Cullen broke into a guilt grin, one that did not reach the mischievous light in his eyes that belied his eagerness. “Not immediately, of course.”

“You know,” Elodie whispered, turning back to where the raindrops exploded in miniature liquid fireworks on the barrier above them, “I used to imagine you at my side, back in Crestwood.”

“While you were fighting?”

Cullen’s thumb soothed a line across the back of Elodie’s hand, and for the second time that evening Elodie was reminded of word she should not, could not, be thinking so soon. She shook her head, her bangs coming undone from where she had tucked their edges behind her ear.

“When I was sleeping,” she confessed. Cullen’s hand stopped moving, and she gave a helpless, shy laugh.

“I never knew.”

“It was better that way.”

“You think so?” Cullen asked, frowning. “You didn’t want me to know how you felt?”

“What would I have told you?”

“Simply what you’re telling me now. That you would think of me by your side. Maybe ask me to join you in your quarters, at least, seeing as I can’t go with you into the field.”

“Would you have gone?” Elodie asked, turning to him, her voice unaccusing. “To bed with me, I mean, before tonight?”

“I… would have liked to tell you that you were not the only one who wanted to sleep side by side,” he whispered.

“Is that what we are to do now, _ma’av’in_?” Elodie leaned to her right, her head coming to rest on his shoulder. “Are we to sleep side by side?”

Before Elodie could say anything more, Cullen had dipped her low to the floor, pushing her back with one hand and catching her shoulders with another to cradle her on the way down. He kissed her with a softness they hadn’t been afforded before, the rain curtaining Elodie’s subsequent moan with its incessant beat.

Her body was loose and glowing, still feeling the effects of her orgasm earlier, her limbs heavy and her heart easy. There was a tightness within her that always came with coming, a well-used sensation of fulfillment that bordered on a muscle ache she got during training. It was deeply satisfying. As Cullen moved up along the floor to better hold her to his chest, she could feel that despite his breeches, he was still hard. She smiled against his lips.

“What?” he breathed.

“Together, we make a fully clothed person,” she whispered.

“Mmm,” Cullen nuzzled into her neck. “Or a fully nude one.”

“If we had some covers,” Elodie hinted, “we could be two fully nude people.”

She did not have to ask twice.

Immediately, Cullen’s arms dipped below her shoulders and underneath of her bent legs. He hefted her weight as Elodie grabbed for his neck, and as soon as she was supporting herself he slid his legs beneath himself and stood with ease.

“Am I not heavy?” Elodie asked, clinging to him even as she savored the way his hand meandered along her bare thigh.

“Not very,” Cullen replied. “I’ve carried books back from the library that weigh more.”

“That means I haven’t built up nearly enough muscles. I’ll have to begin a training regimen with Bull while we’re here at Skyhold.”

“I’d like to see what he teaches you,” Cullen said, moving them over to the bed as he spoke. “I might come watch you, if I have the time.”

“You could teach me, too,” Elodie hinted, kissing at his stubbled cheek.

“Would you benefit from my advice?”

Elodie pulled away, a frown on the edge of her lips.

“What do you mean?”

Cullen set her down on the bed, and as she pushed herself back against the pillows, he crawled under the sheets beside her. The comforter and pillowcases smelled of his shampoo, of spiced flowers, and Elodie grit her teeth against the urge to bury her face in them and inhale. Cullen must have seen her set jaw and assumed she was offended, because his eyes widened and he hurried to explain.

“It’s not as if I wouldn’t enjoy teaching you, or would mind. I would, in fact. Enjoy teaching you, I mean.” He scowled at himself, glancing away. “Ugh. Let me start over.”

“By all means,” Elodie said, a smile on the edge of her lips. She took Cullen’s hand as he spoke and moved it to where his shirt was coming undone over her sternum. At the touch of her bare skin, Cullen seemed to lose his train of thought entirely. It took him a second to recover, during which Elodie began to graze her foot along the outside of his thigh.

“What, ah,” Cullen closed his eyes. “What was I saying?”

“You’d enjoying teaching me.”

“Mmm.” His groan sent a frisson of pleasure down Elodie’s spine. What was he thinking of teaching her in this moment, she wondered. What would he show her right now, if he could? “Right.” Cullen’s eyes opened, and in the dark he struggled to search for her features. She could see it in the way his pupils widened to take everything in as much as humanly possible, could feel it in the way he clumsily pushed her bangs away from her face and behind her ear.

“I’d love to learn from you,” Elodie whispered, her hand moving down his arm, past his bare chest, back down to where his breeches were barely even laced at all. He had tugged them on for modesty’s sake, perhaps, or maybe because he did not want his persistent erection to pressure her to do anything further. Elodie smirked at the thought. Cullen would be the type to consider her limits even at a time like this.

He was underestimating them. And underestimating her appetite as well.

With steady fingers, Elodie began to undo the lacing where it was slung in a haphazard knot over his straining cock. It leapt underneath of her hand when her palm grazed against it, and Cullen’s hand moved to support himself at the pillow by her cheek. He leaned over her, protecting her from the cold as he pulled the sheets and blankets about them in a tent, and instantly Elodie was warmed by his body heat alone. He was a living embodiment of a warm rune set in running water, irresistibly radiating heat and begging her to indulge in relaxation with him.

Elodie moved her other hand away from his, intending to move it to join her other in freeing his member from its leather prison, but Cullen moved first. As soon as her fingers left his, he had moved his palm to her breast underneath of his shirt, brushing the rough pad of his thumb ever to gently across her nipple as it hardened in the cool of the air. Elodie bit back a whimper as a flash of lightning illuminated the room around them.

Cullen acted. He leaned forward, captured her mouth in a kiss, and began to knead the muscles beneath her breast. He seemed not to mind that she was not well-endowed. His hands palmed her flesh with reverence, with a calm Elodie normally associated with touching the petals of fragile flowers in the dew-kissed morning before dawn. As if one was testing its reality, admiring its softness, relishing its elegance. The thought made her weak beneath his hand, and she redoubled her efforts in getting him undressed. With both hands, she pushed his trousers down about his hips, his cock bouncing up to hit his belly before hanging heavy and hard between them as they kissed.

He helped her along when she struggled to move his clothes down further. Together, they wriggled him out of his pants, but neither of them pulled his shirt from her body. Elodie wondered if Cullen thought she’d be cold without it. He warmed her far too much and far too easily to necessitate the burgundy cotton draped about her shoulders. In truth, she wanted to combine their smells. Her vandal aria with his violets, her almond paste with his clove. She wanted the shirt to absorb them both, to contain the smell of sex and almost heartbreaking beauty of the two of them together, for whenever she had to leave in the morning.

Cullen’s fingers moved away from her chest, but Elodie had no time to mourn their loss. He pulled the sheets over them, wearing them almost like a cape as he descended back upon her. His mouth soon followed, tracing hungry paths down her neck, past her jugular, dipping in her clavicle, only to drag open-mouthed suckling kisses over the curve of her breasts. His hand, the one not supporting his weight over her as he straddled her thighs, slid down the length of her abdomen. It parted his shirt over her stomach, undoing most of the lacings to expose her skin.

Elodie’s legs parted just slightly, an immediate response to his roving fingers, but Cullen did not notice. He ran his palm back up her stomach on the other side, grabbing gentle fistfuls of her flesh as his tongue looped about her nipple. When he sucked on its pebbled peak, Elodie cried out and Cullen’s fingers pulled her hip to meet his.

His hand never stopped. Elodie’s palms found his shaft, fully intending to work him into a greater frenzy, but he shied away from her. Lifting his head, he trained her with an innocent look, made more so by his searching in the dark. Behind them, thunder burst over the mountain peaks.

“Elsewhere first,” he whispered, his voice a mere breath even in the privacy of his quarters, as if he could barely believe he was asking this aloud.

Elodie nodded, one of her hands moving to scrape lovingly through his mussed curls. Cullen relaxed under her hands and resumed lavishing attention on her breasts, his tongue alternating between flicking her sensitive flesh with its flattened length, and tugging on it with tight audacity as he took it between his teeth. Elodie’s hands tightened with each distinct change in his ministrations, but he seemed to want to focus on two main sensations. The comfort of his flat tongue, the sharpness of his teeth. It built slowly within her, the fire he was stoking with every second that passed, but steadily.

As her hands roamed over the expanse of his skin, Cullen’s fingers finally found themselves at the apex of her thighs once more. Carefully, delicately, he began to massage around where her thighs met in a mess of dark brown curls. As he kissed across her sternum and ribs, Elodie mewled helplessly against him. He slid his fingers down, his knuckles scraping lightly across the outside of her lips as he squeezed her sex. His probing yielded immediate results, fetching another throaty gasp from inside Elodie’s chest that echoed back inside the sheets. He captured the sound in a kiss, as if he were unable to keep from kissing her when she made noises like that. Elodie repeated the sound, testing the waters, and sure enough her Commander gave an answer groan.

“Can you go again?” Cullen asked against her open mouth.

“Wh-what?”

“Can you… would you like for me  to…”

Instead of continuing his questioning, Cullen brought his lips back to hers with a sigh. His fingers moved again, rubbing along the grooves of her flesh, paying close attention to the still-sensitive but very often neglected folds of skin around her opening. Just enough of a feeling to cause her hips to roll in a magnetic, begging circle… but not enough for Elodie to do more than revel in it. Cullen’s touch was playful, his words innocent, his tongue greedy and insistent. It made for a heady mixture of longing and denial that forced Elodie’s hand.

“You take control this time,” she said, pulling Cullen by his curls so that he would look at her as best he could in the dark. She nodded back at his wide-eyed, questioning stare, then soothed at his cheek with her other hand. “I want you to take control. I can take it, Cullen.”

“By control, you mean-”

“Fuck me how you’ve imagined fucking me, when you’re alone at night and writing lists to me from across the country,” Elodie breathed, a moan caught on the edge of her voice.

“E-Elodie,” he protested, his cheek growing hot beneath her palm.

“I know you have. You’ve told me you have.”

His expression looked pained, the hand of his nearest to her sex clenching gently as he seemed to consider her offer. She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way, in what she hoped was a way he could see in the dark. Lightning flashed above them, the rain pounded harder, and before she could speak the loudest clap of thunder yet caused her to flinch involuntarily.

It went on longer than she expected, sounding like a rift opening, and her gasp echoed back to her from the sheets she was bundled in.

Cullen’s arms were around her immediately, shielding her as she startled. Something in their dynamic shifted, maybe because of how Elodie clung to Cullen’s chest in the aftermath of the loud noise, maybe because he could most likely feel how her pulse had jumped in her surprise. The hesitance seemed to bleed out from his demeanor, his hand traveling up and down her side in a comforting gesture that brought comfort and arousal with every slide.

“You want me to fuck you?” he whispered. Was it for confirmation, or did his voice catch on that last words because of their vulgarity? Elodie arched her stomach up to meet his, the wetness of her curls brushing against the readiness of his cock accidentally.

“Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, please.”

“Is there,” Cullen stopped and cleared his throat, raising his voice as he tried again. A tone of authority rang out within his words, renewing Elodie’s desperation to see him undone. “Tell me what you want me to avoid. My imagination might not match up to your expectations, Miss Lavellan.”

“The only thing you could do that I wouldn’t like,” Elodie whispered, embracing Cullen to her chest, “is stop.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t even like that?” Cullen murmured into her shoulder, his hands pulling at her sore muscles in a way that made her feel like she was melting putty under his palms.

His weight was supported on his elbows still, her arms wrapped about his back beneath the sheets, but he was resting heavily against her. His hips rocked, the tip of his cock teasing about her opening even as her legs clenched together, barely nudging against her swollen sex as he talked. Each push slid against her cleft, slipping through her slickness and his spend and drawing it up to linger on her swollen bud. Elodie marveled that he could move his hips so deliberately, in so tight and small a line to torment her so thoroughly. She lifted them to him, easing his slip.

“I think that you of all people,” Cullen hummed, “would love to get close and have me just…”

He pulled his hips away entirely, depriving her of all sensation, and Elodie whimpered without thinking. She could feel his toothy grin of triumph against her shoulder, and she scratched long, sensual lines down the skin of his back.

“I thought I was the tease, _ma’av’in_.”

“You keep calling me that,” he growled, taking the skin of her neck in a sucking kiss. She laughed at his stubble, shivered at his teeth. When he pulled away, his lips were by her ear. “Tell me what it means.”

“You can’t guess?” Elodie laughed.

“I…I don’t exactly…” Cullen faltered, his voice taking on a tone of openness that Elodie was growing used to.

It was the tone he used when she brought up his own feelings about his lyrium addiction, instead of how it would affect the Inquisition. It was the tone he used when he agreed to find her in her quarters. It was hesitant and avid at the same time, a contradiction, a test of chains he was bound to. He cleared his throat, tried again.

“I think it’s an endearment,” he whispered.

“It is.” Elodie shifted beneath him, smoothing back a curl from his forehead. “But I would never use this endearment when I speak to Dorian or Cassandra.”

“It’s special, then.”

Elodie nodded, and Cullen burned beneath her fingertips.

“Is it…” he stopped, swallowed, continued, “is it only for your lover?”

Elodie nodded more enthusiastically, and Cullen’s cock flexed against the inside of her thigh, as if the thought excited him. He might like the title, Elodie mused. She smiled despite herself.

“It means _my mouth_ ,” she whispered.

“Oh.” A shuddering sigh, as if Cullen could barely believe her but wanted it to be true. “So it’s a sexual nickname.”

“Not always,” Elodie said, holding back a giggle at how serious Cullen was being, at how he was trying to understand her so thoroughly. “It can mean that you know me so well that your mouth speaks in place of mine.”

He let out a little gasp. The noise clutched at her chest, clawing at the inside with raw sweetness she could barely stand.

“But it can also be incredibly sexual. A reminder of how much I love the taste of your mouth,” she finished, and his erection bobbed against her once more.

Elodie knew she was goading him, but even so she was growing slick herself at this voiced intimacy. Cullen began to shift back and forth, dragging the engorged head of his member softly against the skin of her thigh, a gentle rhythm to his hips. Elodie couldn’t stop her words no more so than she could stop his hips from rocking.

“I can call you other things, if you like. Your special name can be something I can say around other elves without blushing. Or I can give you an even filthier one.”

Cullen groaned.

“Oh, we want a richer name, do we?” Elodie moved her fingers down to where their bellies grazed against one another’s, where she could tickle light touches through the trail of golden hairs that streaked down Cullen’s abdomen. “My Commander wants a title befitting what he’s about to do to me. What he’s thought of doing to me.”

“With you,” Cullen bit out, the openness in his voice gone and replaced by a tight clench that was his willpower being exerted. It was subtle, but Elodie was listening for it. It was best to draw him taut like a string before she snapped him against herself, it would give her more pleasure when he broke.

“I could call you _‘ma vheraan_. My lion.”

Cullen moved as if he were about to kiss her, but flinched back when Elodie’s fingers quickly found his shaft. He groaned, his eyes closed in the dark and his pulse racing beneath where Elodie’s palm pressed to his skin.

“Do you like that? My lion?”

He nodded, a little gesture she would have missed in the dark if her eyes weren’t wide to take in his every move.

“Does it fit what you want to do to me?” she asked demurely, her hand moving up and down the silken skin of his cock in a featherlight, teasing touch. When she reached the head of his erection, she swirled her thumb to catch the droplet of desperate precome beaded at the tip. She used it as lubrication to slip her finger up and down, light as air, against the sensitive bundle of nerves by the head of Cullen’s member.

He grit his teeth against her playing, his hips moving seemingly without his permission to fuck harder into her palm. But Elodie pulled back, not letting him get the friction he would need to get off further. He almost whined, his noise caught at the last second and turned into a long exhale.

“You didn’t answer me,” Elodie murmured, leaning up to kiss Cullen’s chest. “Does the name fit?”

“I like it,” he bit out. “But at the same time, it…”

“Oh, ser,” she whispered against his skin. “Do you mean to be rougher with me than a lion might be?”

Elodie slid her other hand from his curls to play at the base of his shaft. He cried out, a sharp, half-swallowed moan that sounded to Elodie like it surprised even him. He whimpered as she moved softly against him, one of her hands working dainty strokes over the shaft of his member, the other moving to thread itself in the dense curls surrounding its base. But still he did not stop her.

“I… want to give you sweetness,” Cullen whispered, his words stilted but laden with honesty. She barely caught it, and when she did, he was already speaking again and gave her no time to respond. “When you give the word,” he said brokenly. “I’ll do as you ask. Only when you say the word.”

“I have to give you permission to give me sweetness?” Elodie mused.

“Or roughness,” Cullen answered, louder than she’d expected. “Which is why you have to give the word, so that I know which one to give.”

Perhaps he liked the denial aspect to such teasing as well, or was so rigidly accustomed to being granted permission for things such as this that he could not will himself to act beyond her boundaries. The thought of Cullen acting as a predator, one she could stop with a word, thrilled her to no end. The thought of Cullen bending her about him in a gentle embrace was just as enticing. Elodie wondered if he would give her both.

“Another word to fit you would be _haurasha_ ,” she whispered, and with both hands she moved Cullen’s cock to where she was slick with her own juices.

He moved with her, obedient and unflinching even in his wound-up state. His hands, as his forearms rested by either side of her head, began to trace her curls out over the pillows as she shimmied down further underneath of him. She curved her fingers to trace the soft hair that covered his balls, could feel them tighten under her touch. He grunted, as if shocked, and his hands clenched into fists on either side of the pillow. Still, Elodie teased the tip of him up and along her length, as if he were a toy she was about to use for her pleasure.

“What does it mean?” he begged after an agonizingly pleasurable moment of teasing. Elodie brought his cock so that it could slide against her clit, and desire shot through her like molten glass. She could barely hold back a cry, could barely hang on when Cullen grew bold and moved his hips again so that the underside of his swollen member would repeat the motion. He ground against her slit, covering himself in her, giving as much teasing as he got, and Elodie finally found words to his question.

“H-honey,” she cried out. “ _Haurasha_ means honey.”

More than anything, the phrase made her want to lean down and take Cullen’s cock into her mouth, to suckle greedily at its tip and trail the length of her tongue down and around its base, to work its mass with both hands until she could drink the sweetness of his orgasm down. The thought ignited her in its depravity, in how utterly unembarrassed she was to think such a thing about the man working her clit into a frenzy with slow, knowing strokes.

“Honey sounds sweeter than lion. I thought you were going to give me a filthier nickname than that?”

“It does mean honey like what you put in your tea. But when given to a person, it can mean honey as in this syrup,” Elodie said, dragging Cullen’s length sloppily about in her juices. He gasped once more, and Elodie wondered if she had disgusted him with her rawness.

“Th-then it’s quite appropriate,” he stammered.

“I agree,” she hummed. She was unable to do more than that, unable to voice how much she liked him like this, bent over her and yet still unbowed.

“What shall I call you, then?” Cullen asked, his tone embodying rich, dark confidence. "Seems only fair I give you something back."

He was fighting for the control, and was winning it. Elodie was holding her breath, now, the muscles of her stomach tensing as she sought release instinctively against the hard jut of Cullen’s erection. It wasn’t quite enough. He knew it, she knew it, but neither of them stopped.

“Call me,” Elodie gave a low moan, distracted. “You can call me whatever makes you happiest. I just ask that it's nothing cruel. Nothing demeaning.”

“Cruel?” Cullen paused, reaching up with slightly awkward difficulty to cup her cheek in his palm while still balancing on his elbow. “What do you mean, cruel?”

“Just…” Elodie shook her head, closing her eyes against less than pleasant memories she did not want to revisit. “Words I’d rather not repeat. That’s all. I'm sure you can come to your own conclusions and go from there.”

“I don't want you to repeat anything, Elodie, just trying to understand."

She clenched her jaw, her desire waning.

"Someone said these words to you before?” Cullen asked.

She nodded.

“As you made love to them?”

His voice held protectiveness, care, but also the slightest twinge of frustration. Elodie smiled, searching over his features and wishing she could explain to him every story of her life before she’d met him. Maybe she still would, over time. Maybe so would he.

The emotion that could not possibly be allowed to surface surged up again in her breast. Rather than unleash it, Elodie caged it within the secret lockbox in her heart- but not before a few words escaped her lips.

“I don’t know that I’d call the sex I had before this making love,” Elodie said softly.

"Why's that?' he asked, a kind edge to his voice, as if he was indulging her in a notion he thought was a bit silly.

"Because," Elodie shrugged, put on the spot having to explain something she hadn't meant to let slip. "Even if I loved them... it was nothing like this."

Cullen exhaled in shock, a breath let out as if her words had thumped against his sternum physically. In the dark, Elodie could see his eyes flit about her features, trying to judge her facial expression. She turned into his palm and kissed his hand, closing her eyes against the unbearable kindness he was training her with. Cullen moved forward and kissed down the length of her scar.

“I will never give you cruelty," he promised. "Not here, not ever."

"I believe you."

"You are a tease, but I don't say that accusingly. I don't resent it. In fact, I've loved it ever since I met you."

"How did I tease you when I met you, ser?" Elodie asked with a laugh, ignoring his turn of phrase and the way it bled hope into her fragile heart.

"Not me," Cullen answered, kissing at her brow. "You didn't tease me personally, not at first."

He settled her in his arms, then continued.

"I watched you testing the waters with others. I... felt for you. Pity at first, because you looked so young and worried. And then, respect, when I saw how you handled yourself with those who would demean you. And finally a sort of fondness, when I watched you growing close to the people around you. You joked with them, dancing close and then further away, trying to reassure them even as you ignored their reassurance."

"You watched me?"

"As your advisor, yes. Never inappropriately. But at times, rather enviously."

"I gave you attention, too-"

"Not like that," Cullen said with a laugh. "I was envious of how good you were with everyone else. You set a very kind example, as Herald. You opened yourself up to others, asked them to help each other. It's the reason why Cassandra hinted to me that I should approach you, it's why we spoke to each other beneath the stars to begin with. You asked for help, eventually for yourself, too."

Elodie swallowed hard, tenderness mixing with a hot guilt she couldn't place inside of her throat. She blinked rapidly away at the moisture collecting in the corner of her eyes.

"I must admit," Cullen continued, his voice almost reproachful, "that the way you looked at me also encouraged me. To the point of incredible distraction."

"You're quite handsome yourself, Commander."

"Could you tell that I wanted to kiss you?" he murmured.

"When?"

"Every time you said my name," Cullen replied.

"Cullen-"

He brought his mouth crashing to hers, his lips brushing across hers in a beautiful caress. She sighed against him, suffused with warmth and a type of bolstered glory. His hands held her still, even as he ground his hips easily across her own. When he pulled away, he cleared his throat, seeming to try and regain his previous train of thought.

"Your name has become one of my favorite words to say, in fact, for that exact reason,” he whispered against her temple. “But it does seem a bit too everyday for what we’re about to do.”

“You think so?” Elodie whispered, the yearning for pleasure once more kindled within her. “Because if you only shout my name as you come for me, I won’t complain.”

He twitched against her, obviously liking the way she’d phrased that. Elodie arched up in the dark and kissed down Cullen’s chest, wiggling further down under him and taking his nipple into her mouth while he thought. Another twitch. She was winning some ground back in the dance for control of the other’s pleasure.

“I’ll k-keep it in mind,” Cullen whispered over her, and one of his hands came down to trace the shell of her ear from its tip to its lobe. “I know this might be… presumptuous. But I’d like to ask your permission to try something with you. If I may.”

“Do as you wish with me,” Elodie hummed, licking against where she knew his heart must have been beating frantically within his breast. “Anything you wish.”

He raised away from her, and without a word he knelt before her and untangled their limbs from one another. First one and then the other, he lifted her legs so that she was parting them as he adjusted between them. He continued his stroking, long and luxurious slides up and down her folds without ever seeming overeager. With her legs falling to the side, he could reach more of her length, could linger along her lips in a more delicate way. If it weren’t for the strained expression, the dark withheld fire in his eyes, Elodie would have never known Cullen was struggling to maintain his self-control.

“I’ll go slow at first,” he bit out, “so I don’t hurt you.”

He waited for her to confirm, and Elodie raised her hands up by the side of her face. Cullen’s gaze raked over her body, what little he could see outlined in the dark. A flash of lightning, the timing impeccable, lit her up for a moment and caused him to flinch in his surprise. His expression was shocked, even when the light faded and he could no longer see her as well as Elodie could see him. She watched as he blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness once more, and thunder clamored outside to match his turbulent expression.

“Maker’s breath, you’re really here,” Cullen whispered, looking somehow sad in the darkness. It clawed at Elodie’s heart, seeing him with such an expression, until he broke into a smile. With another surprised exhale, he shook his head and shifted his weight, bringing one hand away from her to pull back his curls in what she assumed as an effort to calm himself down.

“I am,” she breathed, and she rested both her palms over the center of his chest. She could feel scars, white lines raised away from his skin that marred an otherwise smooth expanse of satin beneath the golden hairs. “I’m not going anywhere, Cullen,” she said, her voice weak in the dark.

It seemed to remind him of something, and she could feel him slowly slide his hips against hers once more. She cried out with abandon, a low, short moan that he answered with a satisfied grunt.

“Can you go slow for me, Elodie?” he asked her in the shadows, his pupils wide and his lips set in a tense line. “Listen to me. I promise I’ll listen to you.”

She nodded, perfectly at ease with whatever he was about to do.

In a swift and steady move, Cullen palmed either side of her arse and lifted her hips up so that only her shoulders were touching the bed. He straightened so that he was kneeling before her and pulling her hips up and away from the mattress. The sheets fell away from him, the cold air kissing at the space he’d left behind over Elodie’s chest. She squeaked, surprised, and automatically locked her legs behind him at the small of his back. Cullen hesitated at her opening, his cock slick with evidence of their mutual desire, and he once more looked to her for permission.

“Be rough with me, _haurasha_ ,” Elodie breathed, bracing herself on the cushions.

Cullen’s face took on a stoic, masked air, and for a split second Elodie felt a surge of trepidation. But then he prodded at her entrance, stretching her once more, filling her, smoothly gliding within to settle himself snugly inside of her, and all cognitive thought was lost. He pulled her back into a more shallow arch, his girth providing enough stimulation against her inner wall to practically get her to her crest with barely a thrust. Elodie cried out despite herself, her mind overworked and her body scarcely able to keep up.

“You have to relax and take me slow before I give it to you how you want,” Cullen ordered, his voice low. “This position has depth to it. It can hurt you if I move too fast.”

“Alright,” Elodie agreed, shifting in his hands. “I defer to you.”

Cullen adjusted himself, then pulled out of her in a long stroke. Before Elodie could say a word, he was moving back within her. He stopped himself halfway, holding back from filling her up completely, but just barely. Fluid and easy, Cullen stretched her with practiced precision. He was in control, she could tell by the way his lips moved just slightly and his eyes avoided hers. He was a supplicant, praying to her even as he desecrated her, and Elodie had never before felt so blessed and broken. She wanted him deeper, much deeper, she could not stand being separated for another second.

But he was in the lead. She deferred to him, just as she said she would. She let him fuck her agonizingly slowly, until she was on the brink of crying out with every prolonged thrust. Only then, only when thunder rolled low outside and a brief flicker of lightning illuminated them once more in their position, did Cullen change his pace.

“Ready?” he asked, spreading his knees for a wider stance that also arched her belly differently. Less of a curve to her back meant less likely to hit too deep at first. He wanted her to be ready, wasn’t just saying the word without meaning. Elodie felt a shockwave of adrenaline pierce her heart, and she nodded with a voiceless plea of parted lips and clasped hands.

Cullen moved before she could beg him for more, pounding into her with an intensity that had her seeing stars. It was good she’d been patient, good he knew enough about his own size to fill her slowly before exacting such sweet punishment on her.

Glittering delight raced through her, sapping her limbs of energy even as a guttural moan was wrenched from her throat. She heard Cullen make a noise in response, and it rippled through her and urged her pleasure onward. He supported her while he fucked her, hard and demanding and aware, yet still she clung to the sheets below her shoulders and pushed upwards into him, voracious and hungry for more.

He knew. He had to have known. Cullen’s legs shifted, drew her up tighter, his cock hit her even more deeply against the wall of nerves that would give her the most intense of sensations.

Elodie was frantic, barely able to catch her breath, each thrust dragging out a cry from inside of her that she didn’t know she was capable of. She moved with him to keep the pace, to grind against his pelvic bone with every stroke, to help them both reach the stars at the same time.

“Cullen! Fuck, harder, harder please, I need you to-”

With only a few thrusts, she came on Cullen’s cock, tightening around his shaft and screaming his name, the nickname that fit his sweetness more than she let him know lingering like liquor on her tongue, the words she didn’t realize she was voicing but that she could feel bursting in a supernova within her chest. She saw constellations against the back of her eyes, could feel stardust flickering through every synapse in her veins, and still Cullen moved.

He took her higher before he let her float down. She didn’t believe that she could come again, or come harder, but the way Cullen was gripping her hips and angling her upon him was treading her closer and closer into dangerous territory of a second orgasm.

Elodie couldn’t fathom it. She had given herself multiple ones very rarely, only when she had been reading smutty literature or when she was on edge from having denied herself coming for hours. She had easily come as she rode him downstairs, merely minutes ago, so desperate was she for release after so many hours of her own hand mimicking his.

Thinking about it now, precisely honing in on the unlikelihood of reaching yet another peak, seemed to somehow diminish the pleasure she felt. As if she were jinxing it, overthinking it, diluting it. Elodie’s eyes blinked open and she paused, receiving Cullen’s hips against hers without climbing any longer.

When they made eye contact, even in the dark, it was as if he could tell. Cullen moved over her and slowed his pace, dipping low to capture her mouth in a kiss as he slid his hand beneath her back. Elodie lifted so that he could settle comfortably as he cradled her, and she could feel his fingers finding a solid place to lay flat just between her shoulderblades. Just where her sharpest muscle pain resided. His other hand he kept on her arse, moving her hips along with his in a less frantic pace. He was slowing down, his thrusts unhurried and fluid and neverending.

“More,” she whispered past his lips. “More.”

“I’ll give you all I have, my Elodie,” he said back to her, and that one additional word brought a surge of desperation back to her breath. His hand at her hip moved forwaard, pressing against her belly so that his thumb could find and begin to circle around the hood hidden within her most private curls. Elodie yelped in ecstasy when he found her, a noise that shocked her in its suddenness but that Cullen seemed completely unfazed by.

“Yes,” she whispered, pleading. “Like that. Just like that, steady, don’t go faster, just keep-  ah!”

Pleasure was building once more, further from where she had been a moment ago, but still there. It bolstered Elodie to know it was alright, in Cullen’s arms she was alright. If she wanted another chance at release, they would try for another. And Andraste preserve her, she wanted to come on his fingers over and over again until she was sore.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he begged, his tone dark. “Not only like this, but Maker take me _especially_ like this.”

“T-tell me,” she whispered between thrusts. “Talk to me, please.”

“I can’t begin to describe my favorite parts of you. How your eyes catch the light. How… how your hands move when you speak. How pert and precious your lips are,” he kissed her again and she whined for release in his arms. He did not rush.

“ _Haurasha_ ,” a hush of a breath, a name that sounded more like a quiet order, a drip of honey on their tongue as they danced side by side. A breathless call for sweetness.

“H-honey,” he answered back, a note of awkwardness in his tone. He was testing it, worried. Elodie bit his lip in reassuring interest.

“Mmm. I like that. Say it again.”

“As sweet as honey,” Cullen said, braver now. She shuddered, letting the words drip across her mouth and into her core.

The energy between them shifted. No longer seeking to take charge of her, Cullen’s hips rolled into Elodie’s and she moved back with him. They rocked together, dancing, content even as she began to hear Cullen’s breathing hitch.

“How can I make this better for you?” Elodie whispered, dragging her hands up his back and across the nape of his neck. “Should I move more?”

“Maker no,” Cullen laughed, his pace never faltering. He nuzzled down into her curls. “Unless you want this to end sooner.”

“Ah, we wouldn’t want that,” she answered.

He chuckled by way of answer, but an idea occurred to Elodie in that moment. She did want that, in fact. She wanted not for it to end, but for Cullen to be so overwhelmed with pleasure that she could watch him float through his own orgasm, could listen to him cry out loudly in the comfort of his own bed as he came. Emboldened, she trailed her fingers down his back and gripped the muscles flexing in his arse. It forced him deeper into her, and Cullen grit his teeth.

“Dangerous,” he sang out, his rhythmic strokes inside of her faltering for a moment. “That’s, you’re,” he laughed at himself, or perhaps in nervousness. “Deft hands indeed.”

“Oh-ho. My darling Commander has such sensitive muscles,” Elodie played.

He scoffed into her neck, and she slipped one hand between their hips to join his. His thumb stopped its foray across her hooded nub, freezing in place as she shooed him off. When his hand left hers, she  gripped the base of Cullen’s shaft with one palm.

Slick warmth, the kind of wetness that would leave a trail of shameful eagerness along the insides of her smallclothes, was absolutely covering Cullen’s cock. She had the urge to make him lick the palm of her hand, to see if he would eagerly lap it up and tangle his tongue about hers as he had below on the chair with her finger- but that could wait.

Her original plan on the forefront of her mind, Elodie resisted bringing her hand away from his member. She could not, however, resist gripping the base of him and giving a stroke as he fucked into her.

“E-Elodie, please,” Cullen cried out.

“Stop?”

“Oh, Maker, I don’t want you to, but you have to if I’m going to keep from-”

She pumped him again as he thrust into her, almost not of his own volition. He growled, that low rumble of a moan withheld, his jaw set in a determined clench.

“Do you want me to come?” Cullen asked her.

“Most definitely.” Elodie grinned up at him in the dark, the rain behind the sheets they lay under covering them with noise like a secondary blanket. “Just not yet.”

“Do you want me to tell you when I’m close?”

She nodded, intrigued by this dynamic they were playing into.

“Warn me only before the point of no return,” she breathed.

She began to stroke him faster, her knuckles hitting against her own flesh as he continued to fuck her. The hand he had beneath her cradling her spine twitched after a moment.

“S-stop!”

Elodie slowed, coming to a stop so that she could grip Cullen’s cock at its base and hopefully keep him from coming too quickly. He grunted, his breathing heavy, and Elodie could feel his cock flex within her. After he had a chance to take a break, and after he let out another short groan, Cullen nodded against her temple. A signal to restart. His permission to continue the torture. Elodie was suffused with such a deep fondness and such an acute affectation that she barely wanted to obey him; but it was sweeter to go with his commands than even seeing him shatter into pieces.

They continued together like this, back and forth, teasing and taunting, until Cullen could barely start again after his breaks. He would signal her, but then grip her hard and lean into her with such a broken moan that Elodie could only laugh and whisper against his shoulder.

“You’re beautiful when you’re on the edge,” she breathed, and Cullen gave a low, humorless laugh. “I’m serious!”

“Beautiful,” he repeated sardonically. “I’m crushing you. You can’t even see me.”

“I can see you well enough,” Elodie said. “I’m good at seeing in the dark.”

“I wish I was, as well,” Cullen confessed in a small voice. Then, as if he forgot that she could hear him when he pressed the words to her neck, he added, “Although this may be a blessing in disguise. Being able to see your face downstairs absolutely ended me.”

She tightened around his shaft involuntarily, the imagery so sensual that it sent a shiver through her body. Cullen had watched her come? She burned with the indecency of it, with the further indecency of wanting him to do it again.

“Ohh, you feel incredible,” Cullen groaned into her neck, “tightening around me like you are.”

“Cullen,” Elodie whispered, pushing him up gently so that she could see his face clearly in the dark. She let go of his cock and, casually brushing some of the slickness off along her own side, Elodie brought both hands to either side of her own face once more.

“Why did you stop?” he asked.

“Because,” she paused, swallowed. “I want you to watch me come.”

“Maker's breath.”

“Can you manage?”

Cullen’s lips parted, his expression awestruck and almost embarrassed. He nodded, firm and decisive even as his eyes betrayed his insecurity. But Elodie had more to ask of him.

“Good. Because when I'm finished,” she continued, “I want to watch you.”

Even looking at her in the dark, where he could barely see her, Cullen seemed to break at the thought. The rain above them beat on, ever steady and insistent, and their hearts did the same. Elodie brought her hand to Cullen’s pulse, brief and fluttering along his jugular, then let her hand fall back to the pillow once more.

“Please,” she begged. "Give it to me."

It was all the encouragement he needed. Situating himself on his forearms above her, Cullen began to draw his full length in and out of her warmth. Elodie gasped, clutching the pillow behind her, and lifted her hips with each withdrawal he took. They rocked together, building, building, and then Cullen whispered her name.

“Let go, Elodie.”

Her eyes closed against her will, her shoulders tensing as her toes curled, and she reached for her orgasm as one would a handhold on a mountain. The thrill of falling, of dangling, left Elodie breathless. But she was not alone in this. Cullen’s helpless exhales, the tenderness lacing his voice, a tone that bordered on matching the feeling that welled up inside of Elodie’s breast without her permission, pierced the fog of her imagination. He held out his hand in place of her make-believe handhold, and she took it, and he pulled her upwards-

She pulled at the pillow above her as her orgasm hit her slowly, a clenching and unclenching of muscles as her pelvis ground deliciously into Cullen’s, as his moans urged hers to a crescendo. The others he had given her were sudden, momentous, but this one was another beast entirely. This peak held her down as she writhed, it climbed across her limbs as she shook, and the intensity of it bordered almost on pain when it hit the base of her spine with its full impact and shimmered in waves all over her body.

Elodie shouted a groan into the pillows, thrashing to the point where she could feel Cullen reach out with one hand to steady her shoulders as he continued to stroke deep inside of her. Then his hand was at her cheek, caressing, and he was begging.

“Elodie, darling, look at me, look at me-”

Her eyes snapped open as Cullen was hit with his own release. His features screwed tight as if he were in pain, and he let out a choked cry from deep inside his chest. Once that sound escaped him, it was followed by others, little moans that enriched Elodie’s satisfaction even more than the sudden spreading warmth deep inside of her as Cullen shot hard within her. He was beautiful as he tensed, and his pleasure was all hers.

With one final mewl, Cullen collapsed against her, and Elodie caught him with open arms. A few deep breaths, her limbs and ears tingling with residual pleasure, and then Elodie succumbed to the velvety darkness of immediate dreamless sleep.

* * *

She awoke to a very faint sensation of something on her hand. Blinking into awareness, Elodie momentarily had no idea where she was. Unalarmed, she brought her other wrist up to cover her eyes, the wrist not attached to the hand being touched.

It was barely a touch, to be fair. A finger along her palm, light, unassuming. Elodie rubbed at her eyes and then turned to her right where Cullen was holding her hand and tracing along the absence of a mark.

“Hello you,” she whispered, shifting to her side as she held onto his hand.

“Hello,” Cullen answered, and he leaned in to meet Elodie’s lips with a brief kiss. When they pulled back, neither of them moved away from one another. Instead, Cullen rested his forehead against hers and continued his smooth ministrations in her palm.

“Was that what you wanted?” he whispered.

Elodie could only groan and nod, far too overwhelmed at the memory of Cullen’s orgasm over her to speak.

“Ah,” Cullen sounded as if he was smiling. “I liked it too.”

“Did you sleep?” Elodie asked.

“A little,” he said. “You passed out immediately. When I tried to wake you, you mumbled something about windchimes and poetry, then curled about me like a puppy. Made it very difficult to stand up and retrieve our clothes.”

“Is that why we’re still naked?”

Elodie could feel the crumpled blouse beneath her. She must have shrugged out of its arms as she slept, as she tangled herself in Cullen’s embrace.

“That, and I like looking at you,” Cullen whispered.

Elodie smiled, her eyes closing in pure bliss.

“I’m sorry for falling asleep,” she breathed.

“Don’t be. I… I hope I wasn’t too rough with you.”

“No, no,” Elodie chuckled. “You were absolutely perfect.”

“Really? Good.”

“How do I look when it happens?”

“When what happens?” he murmured.

“When you make me come.”

He cleared his throat, clearly a bit taken aback at the question, but Elodie’s palm was proof of his resolve. His fingers still outlined designs along the inside of her hand. Even in his discomfort, he didn’t pull away, and she wondered if it meant he was becoming more comfortable with admitting what excited him.

“Your brows knit together, as if you’re very concentrated, and then you utterly fall apart. At first, I worried I had hurt you, but then I felt you clenching on me and I just…” Cullen shrugged. “I just kept going.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Elodie reassured him. “If you’d like to be rougher next time, we should.”

“Next time,” Cullen repeated, and then before Elodie could say more he drew her into a gradual embrace. He tucked her against his chest and held her tight. With one arm pinned between their hearts, Elodie could only bring her left arm to wrap around the expanse of his back in reply. He sighed deeply in her curls, nuzzling her close.

“Cullen?” Elodie whispered. “Are you alright?”

“I’m happy to have you here, now,” Cullen whispered, his voice tight. "To be honest, I can scarcely believe that this isn't a dream."

Elodie held him back, unsure of how best to protect him. Unsure if he even wanted her protection. She could not help herself; she cared so much for the man in her arms that it threatened to drag her under.

“You have me regardless of where I am,” she replied firmly into his neck. His arms tightened around her. A thought occurred. “Did you take off the Amulet of Stardust?”

“No,” he answered, taken aback. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re not wearing it.”

“I’m not?”

Cullen pulled away and brought a hand to his neck. When he couldn’t find the braided leather of the necklace Elodie had given him, he patted frantically about his shoulders, as if it had fallen away.

“Damn. I hadn’t realized.”

“It must have come off downstairs when I undressed you,” Elodie suggested. Cullen nodded, looking unconvinced. “Hey,” Elodie touched a fingertip to his chin and tilted his face to meet hers. “Tomorrow morning, when we go down for breakfast, we’ll look for it while you open my present.”

“More gifts?”

“No. Just the one,” Elodie said.

“I don’t deserve you,” Cullen whispered, his eyes raising to hers as he smirked.

“After you rendered me practically comatose with your lovemaking, I feel as if I should be the one saying that,” Elodie laughed.

It seemed to mollify him, or at least amuse him, because he grabbed her and rolled over onto the bed with her still in his arms. Elodie giggled while Cullen pulled the sheets up, the smell of violets and vandal aria mingling faintly as their curls fell together against the pillowcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Sorry to go a bit rogue with updating! I'm traveling once more, and I couldn't revise this chapter sooner. I hope you all had lovely Thanksgivings if you celebrate Thanksgiving, and if you don't then I hope your November is still beautiful!!**
> 
> I mentally can't decide who would be in charge in the bedroom, between Elodie and Cullen. They both want to be in control on their own terms, but both of them also want to be completely broken down. Even if they won't admit it aloud just yet. I really like the idea of them shifting the balance as they make love, setting up their boundaries while they encourage one another. I could write their back and forth power-testing for ages, and I just might, too ;) I hope it's okay to overload with some nsfw two chapters in a row!


	31. The Skies Begin To Clear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** death mention; skip to the end if you'd like a spoiler note on what it is***

Elodie set her mug down, the tea a bit too strong. She must have steeped it overmuch, which wasn’t unheard of for her. She was a hunter, not a healer, nor a cook. As she flexed her arms back, the Dalish mail creaked over her biceps. She cleared her throat.

“So,” Elodie said firmly. “What do you think?”

Her father turned to her and set his own mug down, the tea undrunk. He must have smelled how strong it was, and didn’t wish to say anything to disappoint her.

“About what, _da’assan_?”

The fire crackled between them, their aravel unpacked for inventory-taking and the summer night fresh and green. The moon was not yet high in the sky, and Elodie could still smell blood on the ground from a recent kill. She trained her father with a playful glare across the flames and began to undo her braids one by one, letting her curls down about her shoulders.

“The tea, of course.”

“I think,” her father smiled gently, “that you should have let your companion prepare it for us. He seemed keen enough.”

Elodie frowned, then turned to her left. Nobody, save for a few scouts exchanging pleasantries with Deshanna as she passed by on the edge of the hill. They were too far to even overhear their conversations. Elodie then looked to her right and let out a startled gasp.

There was a handsome shem sitting beside her. No, not handsome. Beautiful. He was reading, a book opened on his lap across the skirts of a robe she had never seen before. His armor was incredible, silver, with imposing pauldrons and a very fancy plackart over his chest. Stamped into the metal was a flaming sword, and Elodie blinked at the familiarity of it. It was something to do with the Chantry, wasn't it? The man seemed to be trying his best to ignore her stare, but she could see his knee begin to bounce even though it was covered by the burgundy skirt.

“ _What’s he doing here?_ ” she asked her father in Elvish, and she turned to watch as he sipped gingerly at her tea.

“Drink up, _da’assan_ ,” her father said, a note of disapproval in his voice. "Don't be rude."

“But Da, you-”

“ _You're being rude_ _, Elodie_ ,” he snapped in their tongue, and Elodie blinked back the sting of the sudden rebuke. Her father hardly reprimanded her in Common, but to use Elvish... Hurt, she stood up with only half of her braids undone.

“I’m going to gather more firewood,” she announced, and only then did the man look up from his book. Elodie was immediately floored, her knees practically buckling. His eyes were so bright, so innocent, and his lips were trembling and perfect. He looked so familiar, and she knew his name from… somewhere. But this wasn’t right. "C-Cullen," she stammered, and his lips parted in immediate response.

“No, allow me, please,” Cullen insisted in a voice too young, far too young and untouched by the world. Anxiousness soaked into his posture, in the way he stood up and tried to stand even straighter than the heavy armor about his frame allowed him to. Elodie nodded, then shook her head.

“Wait, maybe… I was being hasty,” she said past a lump of difficult emotion in her throat. “I didn’t see the pile we have past the aravel. We should be fine.”

“Oh,” Cullen paused, shifting his weight back and forth between his hips. Elodie watched him thumb the pages of his book, the greaves on his hands ending in sharp armor that was shaped like claws, and he sat down with a little bow.

“It is Cullen, isn't it?"

He stared at her in shock, and Elodie struggled to explain.

"I don't know how I know that, seeing as we haven't met properly,” Elodie said, and then on a whim she extended her hand in what her father had told her was a traditional Ferelden greeting. She knew his name, knew his face from… somewhere else, but maybe it was wrong. Maybe she was making this up. She had just returned from a long and exhaustive hunt and could tell that she needed sleep.

Her father and Cullen both stood, then, moving to her side. Her father’s hand reached out, the back of his hand pressed to her forehead. Cullen’s hand was at her elbow.

“What? Why are you touching me?” she protested, frowning and trying to break from their grip. They allowed her to flinch back, their faces twin looks of concern.

“Elodie, sweetheart,” Cullen whispered, but her father cut off the Templar before her.

“You brought this man here to introduce him to the clan, _da’assan_ ,” her father whispered. “You wanted us to get to know Cullen before you left with him.”

“But…” Elodie shook her head, frowning, tears flowing now in confusion. She knew Cullen. She knew Cullen because she didn’t live here, but she _did_ live here and she couldn’t just _leave._  She realized she was hyperventilating only when Cullen set his heavy, metallic glove on her shoulder.

“Breathe,” he said, his voice lower now, more familiar, better.

“Cullen, you can’t be here, this isn’t-”

“Elodie, please don’t go, just talk to me,” her father shouted, and when she turned around the fire was no longer there.

The Free Marcher forest was gone, replaced by the background noise of a shemlen town. They were in a tavern, Imara standing behind her with her fingers in Elodie’s curls, Elodie seated and crying, and Cullen across from her looking distraught. Imara was pulling, tugging, rebraiding the half of her hair that Elodie had just let loose. Cullen was wringing his hands on the table, no, praying with his hands on the table, his eyes haunted and his lips moving rapidly. Elodie couldn’t make out his words clearly, couldn’t hear him from how far she was. When she tried to reach him, to lean forward, Imara tugged her back with a yank on her hair.

“Let go,” she ordered her friend, swatting at Imara’s fingers.

“You aren’t supposed to bring shems around, El,” Imara tutted. “Whatever will Deshanna say?”

“Deshanna doesn’t need to know!” Elodie yelled, pulling harder, but Imara’s hands were caught like talons in her hair. “Cullen, what’s happening, what’s-”

“Shh,” Imara hushed, braiding rapidly until she reached the end of Elodie’s tresses. Her hands clung there, as if she were holding a mabari by a leash, and Elodie swiped at her face with her palms as Cullen glanced up to the two elves before him.

“Cullen!”

“It’s not real,” he said, his voice mismatched to his expression. His voice was quiet, calm. However his eyes were blown wide and terrified, angry, so angry that it made Elodie’s heart run cold in her chest. “Shh.”

“Stop shushing me, the both of you!” Elodie screamed, and she pulled away from Imara and ran to the door, the smell of fresh blood still lingering impossibly in her nostrils.

The tavern door swung wide and seemed to extinguish all the candles within. She was left with only the light of a torch, planted in the ground before a makeshift altar upon which her father was resting. Trees encircled them, as if they were housed in a room rather than secluded in a copse far from their aravel.

“Da?” she called, stepping out into the summer air. “Da, I’m back.”

“Elodie,” he whispered, sitting up weakly.

“What are you doing, you have to get down from there,” Elodie cried, and she began to tear at the feathers and ferns around the pile of rocks. “This isn’t for you to sleep on, you fool, this is-”

“Cullen is a good man,” he breathed, his voice raspy and caught in his throat.

“Who?”

“You will be safe with him.”

“I'm safe on my own, Da,” Elodie whispered, confused and so sore. Her back hurt, she had fallen on her bow, she had banished a demon from her mind, her back hurt so badly and she wanted nothing more than to rest. She swiped at her eyes, at the tears falling in fat rolling streams down her cheeks. A final phrase bubbled up before she could stop herself. "Cullen is the one who is safe with me."

“But where was he before?” her father asked, reaching up with trembling fingers to smooth away the curls Elodie now somehow found loose about her face. The action made her sob harder. She knew what was to come, so why were they speaking of Cullen at a time like this? Why was this to be her goodbye?

“He won’t tell me,” she whispered past the tears. “But I haven’t told him either.”

“Chains,” her father whispered, and in his voice Elodie heard a familiar timbre, a tone of someone wanting to help but not knowing how to do so without making others forget. “You’re bound in chains of different makes. Until you break your own, how could you ever hope to break his?”

Elodie heard metallic clanking behind her and turned in time to see Cullen being stripped of his armor by women she did not recognize. They were not gentle. Their skin seemed to fuse into the garments they wore, what little garments were to be worn anyway. They were beautiful, curved and well-endowed, and all had hair like pale moonlight that curled far past their waists. Fluttering, beautiful, with dark brown eyes and glittering gold adorning their breasts.

“Why does Cullen let them do this?” Elodie whispered, watching as their every touch seemed to bring a miasma of pain upon the man they undressed. “Why won’t he fight back?”

She had no idea where the words came from. She had no memory of this man, and definitely did not remember the clones that undressed him. She knew his name, however, knew he was supposed to look different, less like a teenager and more like a general. But the Cullen before her was wretched, barely hanging on to consciousness, unfamiliar to her. His arms outstretched as if he was crucified, he stood there and let the women pull piece after piece of him apart to be tossed onto the cold dirt at his feet.

He seemed to be crying himself, his eyes red and rimmed beneath with dark purple, and behind him was only darkness. In the grass and dirt, his feet were bare, but held up on his toes. It was as if he were suspended, frozen, tied up as he was being undressed. With each piece the women removed from him, his jaw clenched tighter and another tear fell.

As soon as Elodie moved to go to him, her father’s hand clamped tight on her wrist, right over a blue ribbon braided there.

“Da?”

She turned, horrified, as her father held her hand to his cheek.

“You look just like your mother,” he whispered, and then he relaxed upon the funerary altar with a long sigh. She waited for him to inhale once more, but if he did, she couldn’t hear it.

Elodie knelt there shaking, his fingers still loosely about her wrist, and stared at her father as if it were all some sick joke. She laughed, even. She laughed at this, because he would fall asleep and scare her all the time. This was not new, he would sleep after his fits for days sometimes and terrify her that it was the last time they’d speak, and right now was just like that. He would wake up. He would always wake up.

Behind her, there were no more clinks of chains. There was nothing, in fact, but the air between the pines of the Planasene. Half-curious, Elodie knew she should look, maybe take the opportunity to go to the man she’d seen being undone, but she stayed by her father’s side. She reached out and shook her father’s shoulder, her laughter bordering on the hysterical.

“Da, wake up.”

She pushed him, harder.

“This isn’t funny anymore. Wake up.”

No response. Slack jaw. Half-opened eyes. With shaky hands, her laughter bordering on sobs, Elodie held her index and middle finger to his neck.

No heartbeat.

She yanked her hand away, shocked at how lifelike he still felt even when there was no life in him. He felt heavy, but his skin was somehow not skin anymore, but something papery and thin and fragile. Or had it always been that way, and he had disguised it with a smile?

“This isn’t funny!” she screamed, her own voice echoing back to her. She could hear more now, running water, soft voices, a faint tap of a ceremonial staff on the tamped dirt. The light about her was changing, shifting, and Elodie screwed her eyes shut and reached for her father’s tunic. She grabbed him and shook him hard, lifting his corpse from the altar and slamming it down again, angry and hurt and betrayed and alone.

Hands grabbed her, pulled her into an embrace, enveloped her in soft robes that smelled of felandaris, and Elodie railed against them in a futile effort to break free. She was small, lithe, but the woman holding her was strong and familiar. Elodie didn’t stand a chance. She collapsed into Deshanna’s robes, sobbing and balling her hands into fists.

“Shh,” Deshanna quieted her, smoothing her hair. Elodie tried to breathe, her air coming in hitched sobbing gasps. “We will honor him.”

“Stop shushing me…”

“Hush, child, you know not what you say."

"Da..."

"Miolvun is still with us, within our voices and our hearts.”

Resentment. Elodie felt white-hot resentment curl within her. Her hands, covered with blood, relaxed their grip on Deshanna’s robes as the Keeper spoke.

“The Creators will receive him with-”

“He didn’t even believe in them!” Elodie shouted, pushing away from Deshanna.

It was as if she had been on the precipice of a great chasm. As she pushed Deshanana, Elodie was vaulted over the edge of a cavernous hole by an unseen hand, and sent plummeting to her death. Behind her, or over top of her, back on the ledge she fell from, she could hear her father’s voice echoing.

_You are no mage. And yet…_

Elodie awoke with a start to a man holding both of her shoulders. He was saying something, but it was nothing she could grasp. Elodie stared at him, unseeing, as the darkness about his shoulders melted away.

She was breathing heavily and quickly, as if she had been running for hours, and was covered in a sheen of cold sweat, and her first instinct was to try to break free of his hold. She lashed out with her fist, connecting with what she assumed was the man’s cheek. With a grunt, he reared back, and she tried to get her bearings.

Bed. Sheets. Why was she in a bed? Where was her father? The room was so dark and her heart was out of control, beating in fear and panic, and she didn’t know where she was. For a minute, she fought against the tangle of sheets about her waist, wondering why she was naked, but the man wouldn’t let her go. She hadn’t realized he was holding her again.

“Elodie, you’re safe, you’re safe,” he said, over and over until it finally registered in her mind.

“C-Cullen?”

“Right,” he breathed, sniffing hard so that the trickle of blood from his nostril wouldn’t drip on the sheets.

“I- oh bloody Andraste, I’m so sorry, are you- did I-” Elodie’s hands flitted shakily about Cullen’s face.

“It’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not that bad. Here, see? It’s done.”

Cullen held out his hands and Elodie looked at his face in horror. He had a red line from where her punch had glanced across his cheekbone and caught the side of his nose. True enough, the tiny dribble of crimson about his nostril was not flowing freely. Seeing it there by her own hand, however, broke her into pieces.

She stopped fighting him and crumbled into his lap, crying quietly.

His hands soothed over the bare skin of her back, over the ribs that hurt with every wracking sob that shook through her core, and over her curls as they covered his thighs. He let her cry a moment longer, but then positioned her so that she was sitting back against pillows.

“Breathe,” he said, his eyes knowing and unclouded by judgment.

Had he said it to her, when she was dreaming? That same voice that she'd heard by the fireside in her dreams now helped her remember that panic was not the answer. Elodie latched onto the intensity there, the familiar lines about his mouth and brow that let her know this Cullen was hers. The dream started to fade from her mind’s eye, its details growing foggy. She started to speak, lest they leave her entirely.

“I saw you,” she whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks as she struggled to breathe slowly. She blinked hard and fast, catching the droplets on her lashes. Cullen didn’t look surprised. “I saw you in my dream,” she repeated.

“Shh, I’m here now-”

“Don’t shush me,” Elodie snapped, the memory of so many hisses in her dream drawing out frustration from her breast. Cullen looked taken aback.

“I apologize.”

“No,” Elodie shook her head, immediately regretting her words. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. Fuck, it was so real.” She held her head in her hands, drawing her curls back tight as she struggled to remember. “Anytime I said anything, everyone shushed me, and I saw you everywhere. With me, in a tavern, outside. You were being… undressed. By these women I didn’t recognize. And ny father was there, to meet you. Or maybe to send me away? But then… he died… and…” she melted into more tears, and clapped one hand over her mouth to stop her breathing from getting out of control.

Cullen asked no more questions. As the dawn broke pink and clear over the soaked stones of Skyhold, the wake of the storm having ebbed, Cullen held Elodie in his arms and rocked her until her tears came to a stop. When her breathing was slow and even, when she could speak without breaking down, Cullen smoothed her hair back behind her ears.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked her, his voice husky as if from sleep interrupted.

Elodie paused, hesitating. But then she found herself nodding.

“Would you like to do it now?” Cullen whispered.

“I…” Elodie paused, shrugging. “No. Not right now, I don’t think. It was too real. But I do want to talk. I don’t know.”

“I understand.”

He pulled her back into an easy embrace, and she clung to his neck. She buried her face against his pulse, kissing where life beat steadily into him. His arms tightened around her almost imperceptibly, and then they separated from one another's arms.

“I’ve had dreams like that,” he said quietly, “where you can’t discern if you are still sleeping or finally awake upon waking. Where it lingers and hurts you throughout the day. They are unnerving to say the least, and traumatic at their worst.”

Cullen pulled away, training Elodie with a level gaze. She tried to avoid making eye contact for a moment, ashamed and still angry for some reason, but not at him. At herself, it felt like. But he was gentle even in his persistence, and Elodie couldn’t resist bringing her eyes to meet his.

“Do you know what I do on mornings like these?”

“Work?” Elodie croaked, her attempt at a joke. Her voice was scratchy from the tears.

“Sometimes,” Cullen said with a chuckle. “But normally, before I can bury it too deeply, I go to the chapel. I light a candle, I kneel, and I take a moment to recenter my thoughts. To remind myself of what’s real and what’s not, and to let it all go.”

Elodie brightened a bit. She’d never been inside of a Chantry during a service, had never been invited to take part in one. Not even as Herald of Andraste. The Sisters she had spoken to assumed that she worshiped alone, and Elodie supposed that she did. But to go to the chapel, and with Cullen? One of her more devout friends? The thought was intriguing and scary at the same time. It almost banished the dream-layers that were still coating her mind like dust.

“Would you like to accompany me to the chapel this morning?” he asked, the invitation tangible now, direct and comforting.

“Y-yes,” Elodie said, before her nerve failed her. “I would.”

“Good,” Cullen said, his lips curving in a smile.

“But I have to look nice, right? Isn’t that… what’s done?”

“The Maker doesn’t care what you wear,” Cullen said with a smile. “But if you’d like, we can change before we go.”

“Could you walk with me to my quarters?” Elodie asked. “I don’t… I don’t really want to be alone.”

Cullen did not falter.

“Of course. Just let me put on a fresh shirt, we can be off in but a minute.”

“Cullen, wait,” she caught his arm as he moved to leave the bed, and he stayed at her side. “When I was in the worst of it, did you hear me say anything in the dream?”

“Yes. You spoke quite a bit.” And with that, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it firmly. Then he swung his legs away from the sheets and sauntered to a chifforobe that Elodie hadn’t noticed last night.

He wasn’t going to answer her more than that, she realized. She had asked to speak of this later, had told him she wasn’t comfortable saying anything about it now, and he was not going to divulge more just yet. Elodie nodded, still shaky, and swiped underneath of her eyes with her fingertips. With a sniffle, she pushed away from the bed and began to hunt down the remnants of her own clothes.

* * *

She changed as Cullen spoke to her in her quarters, about books or something. He seemed to be on edge as well, as if he was trying to keep her mood from affecting him and doing a poor job. Still shaken from the imagery in her dream and still guilty over having hit Cullen, Elodie dressed in silence, twisting the purple bracelet about her wrist all the while. When Cullen kissed her neck, just the once, she found herself shying away until she could button her fresh blouse.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want his touch. She did, contrarily. As he had dressed, as he had found the Amulet of Stardust on the floor with their other discarded clothes, there had been an overwhelming desire to hold him close. But there was a deep sense of guilt, of lack of worth, and of horrible confusion as she realized that her father would never meet the man she was falling for. Elodie could not shake it, no matter how much she wanted to return Cullen’s gesture of affection.

He did not comment on it, and when she made eye contact with him as she adjusted her vest over her ribs, he smiled for her. It was without a trace of sadness, without a hint of annoyance. He seemed to understand. Perhaps this was how he felt when she had kissed him yesterday. Perhaps he knew better than she did what she was feeling. It helped ease the bad feelings, at least enough for Elodie to stop holding her shoulders so tensely. His patience helped press the resistance from her, and she found herself eagerly taking his arm when he offered it to her.

He was back in full armor, his mantle about his shoulders and his confidence radiating outward with every step they took. After last night, with the way they had disrobed one another and shared such intimacy, it was strange to embody their titles once more. The Inquisitor and the Commander of the Inquisition's forces. When nobles glanced their way, Cullen gave them a respectful nod as if it was second nature. Wrapped in her own thoughts, Elodie could barely do the same. She managed, following her Commander’s lead.

Together, they passed by Vivienne as she was entering the great hall from the staircase. Elodie made eye contact with her, wondering why the enchantress seemed to glow as much as she did. Vivienne tilted her head, a tiny smirk on her lips, and gave Elodie a little head bob. Before Elodie could return the gesture, the enchantress turned to speak with an Orlesian diplomat and unfolded the wing-scale fan that Elodie had made for her. Breezily, she gestured with it until the men surrounding her noticed and began to fawn over it. Only then did Vivienne look back at Elodie, a genuine smile on her lips.

And then they were at the doorway leading out to the gardens. Passing through, Cullen held doors for Elodie but mercifully said nothing. When they reached the chapel, there was only a Sister inside lighting candles, and Cullen gave Elodie’s hand a gentle squeeze. She released his arm, assuming that’s what he had wanted her to do. He went over to the Sister and whispered something that Elodie couldn’t hear. To ignore them, she busied herself with running her fingers over the tops of the votive candle flames, passing over them just quickly enough that her skin could barely feel the heat.

Some of the candles were inside of bright red glass jars, to protect their flames from breezes. Others were small and cylindrical, stabbed onto the many metal spears that lined the wax-encrusted shelves without any glass about them. They were beautiful.

The sound of her father’s name on Deshanna’s lips hit her. A memory she’d let slip away until now. She wasn’t sure what had triggered it, and maybe nothing had, but it was difficult to suppress either way. Elodie’s hand dropped away from the flames as they blurred before her, tears returning unbidden. She blinked them back, willed herself to stop. This wasn’t why they were here, and it was childish to cry over a dream.

The sound of a door closing caught Elodie’s attention. She glanced over her shoulder, and Cullen was walking towards her with a look of calm about him. The Sister was nowhere to be seen.

“Did you want to light one?” Cullen asked.

“I…” Elodie laughed, a bit nervous. “I don’t know what they’re even for.”

“They’re for intention,” Cullen answered. “Like a specific prayer. Or a thought.”

He reached by the metal stands, the rows of lit and flickering tea lights, and brought out two candles. One was long and thin, one small and squat.

“Which would you like?”

Elodie hesitated, wavering. She couldn’t remember the last time she was so unsure. Cullen smiled, and Elodie had a sudden flash of clarity. That smile was one she saw over chess, when he spoke of his sister. It was affection. It was innocent. And it was hers.

Blushing, Elodie watched as Cullen held out the long votive candle to her.

“I always liked the small ones,” he confessed, turning the little candle in his other hand to and fro. “They feel sturdier, somehow. Would you like one like mine, or will this one do?”

“No, this is fine,” Elodie said, taking the thin yellowed votive from his fingers. Together, they turned to the shelf and Elodie watched Cullen attentively for what to do next.

He reached out and lit his candle from one of the open-air votives. When the flame caught his wick, he firmly pressed his candle into one of the spears protruding from the shelf and pulled his hands back. When Elodie moved to do the same, he held out his hand to lightly catch her before she lit it.

“Yours will go here,” Cullen said, indicating a line of little round holders on the side of the shelf. They were coated with wax, but held no candles.

“I can’t light mine then,” Elodie whispered.

“Oh?” Cullen tilted his head. He seemed to want to ask why, but said no more.

Elodie bit her lip.

“I mean... is it even allowed? For Dalish girls to light prayers to the Maker's bride?”

“Elodie,” Cullen reached out and took her hand in his.

The anchor glowed green through his glove, a reminder of her status. Herald of Andraste, and yet still Dalish. Even if she was bad at it, it was who she was. She swallowed hard, unable to voice the conflict within her or why it caused her trepidation when normally she was so sure.

“I didn’t bring you here to make you feel anxious,” Cullen whispered. “I find comfort here, but you don’t have to. If you want, we can go sit in the garden. We can play chess. Or if you’d like time to yourself, I can leave-”

“Don’t,” Elodie whispered, smiling past her fear. “I don’t want you to go anywhere, especially since we haven't had a chance to talk yet."

"We've talked some this morning."

"I mean that we haven’t had a chance to discuss what we liked in particular about last night.”

Cullen looked as if he were shocked she would bring up their lovemaking, but when he opened his mouth to say something, Elodie found that her words would not cease.

“I don’t regret it! I don’t want you to think that just because I had a silly nightmare that I regret making love to you as much as I did, or that I won’t spend the night again for fear of bad dreams, or that you have to fix it for me to stay with you-”

Cullen squeezed her hand reassuringly, silent as she rambled, a look of deep empathy written on his features. Elodie stopped herself, biting her lip as she brought her votive candle up to examine it. She was afraid if she didn’t, she might accidentally snap it in two with how hard she was gripping it.

It looked to be made from beeswax, dipped in layers and smooth all over. The ones Cullen liked, the sturdy ones, looked like they were wax folded in a tight circular pattern, over and over again until they made the right circumference for the votive. Elodie could see why he liked those. She seemed drawn towards the one he had given her, and sacreligious or not, she wanted to light it.

“I don’t regret last night, either,” he whispered.

She glanced up, eyes narrowed in skepticism. How could he not regret it when she woke up crying and punched him in the face? Her expression must have relayed her exact thoughts precisely, because Cullen barked a laugh.

“I truly don’t, Elodie, believe me.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles, and added, “I’m surprised that my ability to take a punch didn’t come up in your conversations with our resident Champion of Kirkwall.”

It was Elodie’s turn to laugh.

“Oh, it did come up,” she giggled.

“Then you know that you shouldn’t worry about giving me an accidental knock.”

"I don't like hurting you, Cullen."

Her Commander flattened her palm against the barely visible red mark from where she had hit him earlier.

“See?” He flicked his gaze up to hers. “No hurt to be found.”

“I…” Elodie bit her lip. “I suppose not. But if the dream hadn’t ruined-”

“It ruined nothing for me,” Cullen said against her hand.

Elodie rolled her eyes playfully, believing him a little bit more every time he reiterated the sentiment. Glancing back down at the candle she was holding, Elodie pulled her hand back from his cheek.

“Alright, ser, I could use your expertise for a moment. If you can refrain from being absolutely charming for more than two seconds.”

Cullen laughed, looking as if he was relieved she found him to be that instead of something more ridiculous.

“How can I be of service, sweet lady?”

"Mmm, little less," Elodie teased.

"What do you desire?"

"Cullen!"

"Right, right," he cleared his throat and set his face in a mock scowl. When he glanced over at her, his eyes were flinted and bright. "What?" he growled, reminding Elodie of a particularly sweet confession and kiss.

He couldn't hold the expression for long, and they both erupted into quick laughter, Elodie leaning playfully onto his pauldron as she giggled.

“This candle," she said when her mirth subsided, "I light it, I figure. Since that's just what you did.”

“Excellent deduction, Inquisitor,” Cullen said with a smirk.

“But when I do, I’m not sure what to do next.”

"You stick it in that holder, as I showed you."

"No, after that," Elodie said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like,” Elodie glanced up at the rafters, waving her hand about her person. “What should I think of?”

“It’s up to you,” Cullen said. “Would you like to know what I lit mine for?”

“Will that diminish the prayer?”

Cullen gave a happy laugh, as if he hadn’t heard such a question in a long time. He moved closer to her, his golden pauldron brushing against the sleeve of her tunic.

“My mother used to tell us all to light candles at the Chantry for another healthy son,” he said, “back when it was just me, Mia, and Branson. My mother would bring us all in a line, like ducklings, to the Chantry for service, then afterwards would give us all a few coppers to grab candles. We would light them together, and then we all prayed very hard for a strong, strapping, healthy baby boy.”

He nodded at her.

“I think it would be fine to let you in on my prayer, miss.”

Elodie paused, then turned to Cullen with a wry smile.

“Yeah, but you said that you had just the one younger brother. Branson.”

“That’s true.”

“So you didn’t get another little brother. You got Rosalie.”

“Doesn’t mean that our prayers were diminished,” he said, smirking at her over his shoulder. “Did I ever tell you about Rosalie?”

Elodie shook her head.

“She had the dream, for a while, of competing in the Grand Tourney. Had our father train her in the backyard, before I went off to Templar training. She would knock Branson on his arse whenever we got in the ring with her, and even I could barely hold my own against her."

"She was that strong?"

"Maker, no, but she was _fast_. Nobody could stand up to her speed. So you could say our prayers for strength,” he reached for Elodie’s hand, and she understood; as she transferred the votive to the hand between him, Cullen guided her candle to the flame of his. “Our prayers for a healthy child, and our prayers for an addition to our family who we could be proud of… those prayers were all answered.”

“It seems they were,” Elodie exhaled, Cullen’s fingers holding her own steady as the wick caught fire. It glowed bright, burning hot, then settled into a steady flame. Cullen let her go, and she brought it shakily over to the rounded holder. Sticking the wax down into the grip, she racked her mind for what to think of.

She didn’t want a child. She didn’t want money, or protection, or whatever it was what people normally asked for. She didn’t know what else one could pray to receive. When she meditated, that was her prayer, the clearing of her mind and the peace that came with it. Maybe clarity would be a good prayer, but could one pray for themselves? Would it be wasted, if it was?

Elodie glanced over to ask Cullen this, but when she looked over her shoulder his eyes were closed and his head bowed. His hands were clasped low near the center of his chest, and Elodie sighed. She did the same, turning back to her candle and clasping both hands together before her waist. She closed her eyes, and tried to think of nothing.

Of course her mind rebelled. Turbulence was what she found, like a lakefront’s ice pushing its way upwards onto the shore and breaking into a thousand slow pieces. Memories of her father mingled with the dream-version she’d seen of him during the night and jarred her with their rough edges.

A sudden, unbidden image of Cullen, his face unrecognizable, from her dream bubbled forth. Young, frightened, angry. And then further back, back to the beginning of the dream, a fireside. Her father and Cullen both asking if she was okay, a vision she would never get to relive. The dream had given her that, at least. It had given her the sound of their voices mingling in her mind, a thing to hold onto in the darkness of her father’s absence. She gave a little laugh, bringing her hands up unconsciously to kiss her own knuckles as she thought.

She wanted to know what her father thought of all of this. Her having left to go to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Her having a mark in her hand that everyone claimed was holy. She wanted to know what he thought of the decisions she’d made, the friends she’d accumulated, the name she had created for herself with purpose and by accident. More than anything, she wanted to know how he would view the man she was falling in love with.

Her body relaxed completely, the tension from the dream fleeing her bones. She was, wasn't she? Falling for Cullen, deeply and steadily, as a friend and confidante and respected figure in her life. It was a gradual feeling, still very small, to be protected and observed without being meddled with… but it was there. The dream made more sense, scared her less, hurt her less.

She allowed her feelings to form a tangible thought in her mind’s eye; a prayer to the Maker, perhaps to his bride, to some unknown being beyond herself that would be present in the flame.

_Give me the strength to tell Cullen about my father. Because I want to share everything I can with him, when the time is right._

With a long, low sigh, she unclasped her hands and slowly opened her eyes. There was a sense of tears, back behind her eyelids, but they did not fall now. She felt cleaner than she had earlier this morning, felt lighter somehow, and the tears were not going to be able to amplify it. She cleared her throat and turned to where Cullen was looking up at the sunburst statue back behind the candles.

“Did you find something to pray for?” he asked, glancing at her over the fur of his mantle. Elodie gave a small nod, smiling faintly to herself. Cullen nodded back, turning his gaze once more to the candles.

“What was your prayer?” Elodie asked, her voice rough but steady. "You never told me."

Cullen gave a scoff, good-natured and kind.

“It was not for a younger brother, I’ll say that much,” Cullen said.

Before she could reply, he took her hand in his and moved towards the main altar, past rows of pews, some of which were overturned and mildewed. There were larger candles lit here, larger flames that somehow seemed to burn down slower, and they were held in large class vases in a row at the feet of Andraste. In her stony hands, she held a bowl of fire, its flames licking up.

Elodie swallowed hard. Was this the woman she had seen in the fade? The one who had reached out to her, glowing and precious? She glanced up at the carved white stone, wondering, almost so lost in the thought that she did not see Cullen kneel.

“What are you doing?” she asked, tracing her fingers lightly through his fur mantle.

He looked particularly good on his knees, a thought that brought a blush to Elodie's cheeks and forced her to withdraw her hand from his fur.

“I usually say a part of a canticle after I light a prayer,” he whispered, looking up at her from where he had taken a knee. “It helps, just to clear the mind. I don’t know how many you’ve learned, so if they aren’t peaceful to you, then I can-”

“No, please,” Elodie held up her hand, then knelt by him. She sat differently than him and tucked both her knees underneath of herself without even thinking. It was how she always sat on the floor, back on her haunches with her weight back in her hips. She was lower than him, but she realized it only when she had to glance over and up at him to guide her through the process. It was nice to look up at Cullen from this position too. Blushing at her indecency, Elodie turned back to Andraste, who now loomed over them both rather imposingly.

“So,” Elodie cleared her throat. “How do I do this?”

“Do you know the Canticle of Transfigurations?”

Elodie shook her head.

“I could say it a verse and you could repeat it, if you like,” Cullen suggested. "Or I can say it for us both."

"I want to say it too."

"Somehow I knew you would," he answered, sounding as if the thought pleased him.

Elodie nodded and smoothed her hands down her legs. She copied Cullen, folding her hands before herself as he cleared his throat and began.

“Many are those who wander in sin,” he said softly.

“Many are those who wander in sin,” Elodie mimicked, hesitating slightly. She glanced over, saw that his eyes were closed, and so she did the same.

“Despairing that they are lost forever.”

"Despairing that they are lost forever," she repeated.

They continued, speaking one after the other, slow and steady, until the second half of the verse.

“The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next,” Cullen whispered, but as Elodie shadowed him, he continued on, their voices overlapping in a canon. “For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light.”

His voice lowered.

“The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shepherd, her foundation and her sword.”

Elodie trailed off with the last word, her ears perking as her lips finished the final syllable. She looked to the man at her side, watched as his fingers fidgeted as if he were meant to be holding something to his lips as he kissed his knuckles.

Cullen was beautiful, she realized not for the first time. The lines about his eyes were softer in the morning light that trickled in through vine-covered windows at the back of the chapel. His armor glimmered and glowed, and beyond the stone of the floor and the wood of the pews, Elodie could smell the freshness of dirt that had absorbed a storm's worth of rain. And Cullen smelled of her hair, vandal aria wafting towards her from somewhere about his person. He still had his eyes closed, as if he were truly contemplating what the phrases had meant. Elodie contemplated how lovely it would be to trace a line down from just behind his ear to where his gorget hid the braided leather strap of his necklace.

“What now?” she whispered.

Cullen turned to her, blinking clarity back into his eyes.

“We can meditate further on the words, or we can stand up and leave. We can talk about what the words mean to us-”

“Can we kiss?” Elodie whispered.

Cullen’s eyes widened and Elodie could not help but grin as his skin flushed pink. He coughed, like he was buying time, and one hand unclasped from the other to move to the nape of his neck.

“I, ah,” he paused, then laughed as he dragged his glove across the back of his head. “It's a bit unusual for a traditional prayer service, my lady.”

“Oh.”

Elodie's tone of disappointment must have been what swayed him. He moved before she could get to her feet. Cullen caught her softly, leaning down to brush his lips carefully across hers, his hands lightly coming to rest on her shoulders. Elodie sighed against him, her noise echoed in his answering gasp, and her hand found his stubbled jaw with immediate ease. He tucked his knee beneath himself, kneeling on her level, crushing her to his chest as she clung to the fur about his shoulders.

The flames of the votive candles flickered behind them, but the Sister that Cullen had sent away did not return. He and Elodie were left to their holy contemplation in absolute silence, save for the faint chirp of birds from the garden beyond the door and the snap of fire from the bowl of flame in Andraste’s palms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** death mention: Elodie relives being there when her father dies, and relives a bit of the grief she still carries over that***
> 
> I would like to think that Cullen sent the Sister away because he wanted Elodie to feel free to make the service her own. Headcanon that he struggled to memorize the Chant of Light, and one of the first people that Cullen befriended during Templar training was someone who let him shadow them just like he does for Elodie in this chapter.
> 
> <3


	32. Heartfelt Suggestions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am always intrigued by what the companions have to say about a Quizzy's relationship... especially if it tends not to come up in-game directly! Elodie's going to get some differing perspectives on the situation, let's just say that up front. Enjoy!

The world seemed to quietly balance itself once Elodie banished fear and panic from her thoughts. For a moment she wondered if she could cancel all her plans today and keep Cullen on the floor of the chapel with her for a few more hours. The way he held her against himself, the way his knees brushed against hers as they struggled to come together while keeping their embrace appropriate... Cullen had her shedding the feelings of abandonment from the dream like dead skin.

But it was not to be their entire morning; they had much to do, and just outside the door Elodie could heart people beginning to mill about in the garden and prepare for the day. She broke their embrace with extreme difficulty, and when she saw Cullen's eyes remaining closed, she pressed her forehead to his.

"My dream bodyguard," she murmured, and Cullen huffed a small laugh. His hand found her cheek and his thumb traced the grooves of her vallaslin in soothing spirals.

"I am at your service," he said softly.

They stood up together as one, their hands joined as they blinked blearily in the brightening light of the morning. The sun was rising through the overgrown windows, and the day was truly beginning. With a sigh of what sounded like contentment, Cullen brought Elodie back into the great hall with his arm supporting hers. She wanted to ask if he would stay for breakfast, but she knew instinctively that Cullen would not eat before he finished his morning reports. They seemed destined to miss sharing a meal together for the time being.

Not that Elodie was complaining. Skipping dinner the previous night was one of the best decisions she'd made in a while.

“See you later tonight?” she asked Cullen as she sat down, in a state of glowing relief after their candle-lighting and caressing. She barely noticed how Vivienne and Dorian both set their silverware down, one of the pair courteously looking away while the other smirked over Elodie’s shoulder.

Cullen gave her a smile as he tilted his head.

"I'll be in my office if and when you need me, Inquisitor." With that, Cullen bowed to her and her companions and strode from the great hall, turning towards the courtyard as he left.

Elodie watched his back, her mind elsewhere, until Dorian cleared his throat beside her. She flinched, frozen and unable to turn.

“Inquisitor,” he cooed. “Would you care to join Madame de Fer and I in our conversation?”

“Ah. That depends.” Elodie turned to grab a bit of meat from the center of the table with her fingers. As she chewed, she added, “What is the subject?”

“Do use a fork and knife, my dear,” Vivienne said, her voice clipped. “You may not be seated next to a dignitary, but we are not on the road. There is cutlery at your immediate disposal.”

“I have a hard time imagining you foregoing a fork merely because you’re eating by a bonfire,” Dorian said to the enchantress with a smirk.

She pursed her lips.

"I would suggest you do not exhaust your mental abilities this early in the morning anyway, Lord Dorian. Maker knows you'll need them to finish the organization of the new  encyclopedia that have just arrived."

"Psh, all that requires is a standard alphabetical sort- oh, very clever. I have a hard time with my letters because I am a dolt. Nicely done, Madame."

Elodie took a spare set of silverware and pulled it towards herself, grateful to have distracted from the earlier-

“We were on the subject of your arm being looped around someone else’s this morning,” Dorian continued.

Damn. He was tenacious.

"Dorian was on the subject," Vivienne sniffed. "I was doing my best to ignore him and finish my tea in peace."

"My, my, you are elegant when you lie," Dorian teased. "Is this what earned you such popularity among the court?" Vivienne shot a withering smile his way, but did not contradict him. Dorian turned to Elodie and asked, "So? What were you doing up so early with Cullen on your arm?"

“Ah. The Commander was…”

Her words were interrupted by a long growl of her stomach. Vivienne tilted her head as if in admonishment, like Elodie could somehow control the involuntary noise, and Dorian pulled a plate of meat over to where she could more easily reach it. Elodie stabbed a whole haunch of the meat, pork it looked like, and brought it to her plate. She hadn’t eaten last night, and was unsurprisingly famished.

“So, the Commander was what?” Dorian prompted. “Helping you find your way to the gardens this morning?”

“Y-yes.”

“Oh,” Vivienne said daintily. “Have you been away for so long that you had forgotten how to get there, darling?”

Elodie glanced up at her, shocked that Vivienne was either ribbing her or insulting her. It was infinitely hard to discern with the Orlesian mage. As if she could tell, Vivienne gave her a tiny, wry smile.

“I merely ask because I value your reputation, my dear.”

“How would it damage her reputation to need help finding the garden?” Dorian mused.

Vivienne gave a scoff, regarding Elodie in lieu of dignifying him with a response.

“There are many pros to entering into a relationship with someone of Commander Cullen’s station. He has no title save that the Inquisition bestowed upon him, is not of noble birth, but has a military background that affords him quite a good standing. I do not disapprove."

Elodie swallowed hard at what sounded like a back-handed compliment if there ever was one, then mumbled a small thank you. Dorian took a bite of bread, looking as if he wanted to roll his eyes but just barely refrained.

"You're welcome, dear. But even so, there are several detriments that go along with beginning such a liaison as well. Needless to say, Commander Cullen being your primary military advisor might lead some people to question how unbiased your decisions for the Inquisition could be in the future.”

“Well, those people don’t really know me, then,” Elodie said, unwavering in her stare. "Regardless of whether I have feelings for Cullen or not, some of his ideas are poorly planned and, at times, even brutish. Just as Leliana's tend to be furtive and possibly too underhanded, or Josephine's far too passive and indirect. Which is why it falls to me, as Inquisitor, to discern what the best course of action to take at the time will be."

Vivienne seemed surprised, but did not give off any hint of offense. Elodie narrowed her eyes.

“Do you feel this way specifically, Vivienne?”

“No, my dear,” she replied. “From our conversations, I have found you to be very receptive to all perspectives before you make any decisions. Just as you have said.”

“Then why even bother bringing it up?”

Vivienne sighed, and glanced over at Dorian with a flick of her lashes.

“There was some talk this morning,” Dorian said quietly, his tone losing the uptempo frivolity he tended to employ when engaged with Vivienne.

Elodie frowned, and he went on.

“Visiting Orlesian nobility, some minor houses, were having breakfast when you and the Commander walked past. Vivienne took it upon herself to do some of the damage control, and I assume it's why she's advising you now.”

“Damage control?” Elodie laughed. “What damage has been done?”

Vivienne and Dorian shared a look, one that seemed to be hesitant and resigned all at once.

"By spending so much time with the Commander," Vivienne said, "you have hinted that you are unavailable, darling."

"That's damaging?" Elodie burst out, confused and growing frustrated.

"Madame, if I might jump in?"

Vivienne made a tiny sucking sound with her tooth, but raised her teacup to allow the Tevinter mage his turn.

"In merely a couple of weeks,” Dorian said carefully, “we will be sent to the Winter Palace, and the height of Orlesian society will be watching your every move.”

“You will be scrutinized on so many levels, Elodie,” Vivienne added, her voice prim and polished compared to Dorian's comforting low tone. “Orlais is not a kind magnifying glass. Anything could be taken to use against you, from your style of dress to the way you walk.”

“Even your name could call some people to question your background,” Dorian said.

“Which is why Josephine and I have been hoping to take you aside, to better prepare you for the type of deconstruction you’ll be subjected to at the Palace,” Vivienne continued in turn.

"And why I wanted to be here to offer you even more unique, non-invested perspective on the matter," Dorian said with a smile.

Listening to them was like watching a well-rehearsed dance troupe performing. When one stopped speaking, the other picked up the sentence as if they had scripted it. Elodie wondered if it was an ability shared among mages, to be able to jump in like that in such good timing. Or perhaps, more likely than not, it was a skill acquired by higher nobility. It only further served to remind her how little she knew about such things, and how modest an upbringing she'd had in comparison to the two before her.

"If I'd known I would be starting the lessons straight away this morning, I would have taken my breakfast in my quarters," Elodie mumbled down to her plate. Her companions couldn't have known, but she was still fragile from the dream she'd barely put out of her mind. Cullen had helped, had banished the homesickness and loneliness from her, but the way her two friends were carrying on was seeping it back into her bones. She wished she'd stayed in the chapel now, on the cold stone floor with nobody to judge or condemn her.

Vivienne seemed to soften, then, maybe at Elodie's comment or perhaps at her crestfallen expression.

"Elodie, dear, we admire you for who you are. That which makes you different can be a burden, or a source of strength. I would never suggest that you change, merely that you prepare to be strong."

"Today, the beginnings of a rumor were sewn, much to my chagrin," Dorian sighed.

"I've never taken you as one to shy away from gossip, dear," Vivienne stated coldly.

"Exactly! I was hoping that I would be implicated in some sort of love triangle among the two of them, but it seems the nobility only has eyes for Elodie and Cullen alone."

“Should something truly be going on between you and the Commander,” Vivienne address Elodie, her voice breezy but not cruel, “you must begin to think about his reputation as well as your own. People will talk, discredit, and lie."

"And they'll call it a Game," Dorian grumbled.

"Sometimes new relationships," Vivienne continued, stalwartly ignoring the mage across from her, "especially between two members of an organization that is relatively new itself, could be taken as a weak point to exploit. You may be faced with a difficult decision in the future, and I hope that you have the wherewithal to set your feelings aside in order to do so.”

Elodie hadn’t considered that. She bit her lower lip, mulling it over.

“I don’t want Cullen to be subjected to any scrutiny like that because of me,” Elodie said, her voice almost inaudible. “He and I are well aware of how things could be taken, of how it might look to be involved with one another. We talked for a long time before acting upon our feelings. I wanted to be certain, especially, that it was not my position of power that forced him into submitting to my whims.”

Vivienne glanced down at her plate, a sign that she was pleased by the levelheadedness of the remark, but Dorian narrowed his eyes in skepticism.

"He doesn't deserve to be second-guessed," Elodie said quietly.

“Why do you look so distraught?” Dorian asked.

Elodie shrugged.

"This isn't the happiest of conversations, you realize."

“Noted," Dorian said quickly, "but I have to ask... You’re not considering ending things with the Commander, surely?”

“What? No!"

"Good. Because if you dare let him go for the sake of a bunch of pompous-"

"Dorian, he means far too much to me,” Elodie sputtered.

She swallowed, barely registering what she’d admitted aloud. Carrying on, her voice gained a steadiness it had lacked in the previous breath.

“I merely think that it would be good to consider Vivienne’s advice on the matter. If she thinks it’s best not to advertise our affections for each other so openly, even in Skyhold,” Elodie turned to Vivienne, whose eyes reminded her of a cat who had gotten into the cream. She finished lamely, “Maybe we’ll just have to endeavor not to do so.”

“Are you going to be alright with that?” Dorian asked her.

Again, Elodie could only shrug.

“I am the last person to advise you to pretend to be something you’re not, love,” he said, his voice lowering, “so do not mistake me. I don't think you should stop showing affection openly, even if people do talk. Let them talk. Let them shout to the rafters. But be aware of what they say so that it does not bring you down.”

Elodie nodded, the weight of this conversation something that she had not planned to undertake this morning. Suddenly, she felt extremely tired, and wanted nothing more than to go back to her quarters and climb into bed for a few more hours.

“Whatever you and the Commander decide,” Vivienne said loftily, “we will support you. Especially seeing as we have little say in the matter.”

“We're on your side, both here and at the Winter Palace,” Dorian finished.

“I thought you didn’t want to go to the ball, Dorian?” Elodie asked him, partially because she was curious but mostly to direct the conversation away from herself for a moment. She could almost sense Vivienne’s eyes moving back and forth between herself and Dorian, but Elodie did not break eye contact with the Tevinter mage’s gaze. Dorian cleared his throat, caught.

“Originally it was unappealing, yes. But pass up a chance to see our lovely Inquisitor try to navigate the Winter Palace in a gown? I would never!” He took another sip of tea, pausing at the rim of the cup. “I’m also curious as to how Cullen will react.”

“To the Palace?”

“To you in a gown.”

“Oh. He won’t be phased,” Elodie scoffed. “It will be a mission to him. He'll be focused on the task at hand instead of what I’m wearing.”

“You don’t truly believe that, do you? He’s strict, but not _that_ strict.”

“Regardless of how Cullen feels about dresses,” Elodie sputtered, growing red, “I think I speak for us both when I say we will conduct ourselves professionally and in as unbiased a manner as possible.”

“Ha. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I don’t want you to be forced into going somewhere you would hate, Dorian.”

“And yet you take me out into the field with The Iron Bull. Strange.”

“Look. If I take you to the Winter Palace, you have to promise that you’ll keep me from making too much of a damn fool of myself. You cannot advise me to do something because you think it will be funny to see the Dalish girl upset the Orlesians.”

“Fine.” He sighed. “Can I at least feed you canapes and cause a slew of lecherous rumors to surround us both?”

Elodie gave a mirthless chuckle.

“Only if you promise to go easy on the spiced wine.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Dorian said and turned back to his plate, setting his toast down with an air of smugness about him. “But I agree to your terms.”

“So what would you call what you have with the Commander?” Vivienne asked, her tone calm and even. “I assume from your reaction that it's to be an ongoing affair?”

Elodie blanched. She had said that he meant a lot to her, hadn’t she? Admitted it right there at the first pressing from a friend. She didn't realize how difficult it was to lie about what she and Cullen were to each other.

“I see. You’re lucky I covered for you this morning how I did, then,” Vivienne sighed, bringing a delicately manicured hand up to pass Dorian the fan across the table. “You gave me an excellent piece with which to do so, as well, thank you for that dear.”

“Y-you’re welcome,” Elodie stammered.

“Our little magpie made that, did she?” Dorian hummed, approval suffusing his tone. “I can’t wait to see what she has in store for me.”

“Your gift was still drying yesterday, or I would have gotten it to you,” Elodie offered.

“No rush. Hopefully it’s something ostentatious I can wear to the ball.”

“It isn’t, but I can make you something that is.”

“Oh please do,” Dorian said with a wink. “But don’t let me strong arm you into making me accessories if you've other more-” his voice took on a breathy, desperate tone, "- _blonde_ matters to attend to."

Elodie closed her eyes against the joking, willing herself to wear a neutral expression. She needed to get used to such comments, apparently. According to both mages, she was going to be receiving a lot of them in the near future.

“I will be bringing this to the Winter Palace, that much is certain,” Vivienne said, taking the fan back to admire it once more. “So make sure Dorian’s statement piece is not in the same circle as mine, would you dear?”

Elodie glanced over and returned Vivienne's polite smile.

“You don’t want to match, Madame?” Dorian asked.

“I would not want to show you up, darling.”

As she watched the two mages fuss over the fan’s craftsmanship and each other, Elodie finally began to relax. For all their teasing, or their concerns, they did care about her. They had all three of them worked together long enough, explored far enough, for that to transcend a few social barriers. Without waiting for her to ask, Vivienne poured Elodie a cup of tea from the pot she had by her elbow, then passed it over the table. The smell of crushed juniper and lemon made her mouth water, and she took it eagerly as Dorian argued over double breasted lapels versus single for vests.

“There will be a required uniform for all of the Inquisition save the Inquisitor,” Vivienne said daintily. “So I don’t know why you’re getting worked up with me, Dorian.”

“A uniform? Based off of what?” Dorian asked, gesturing so wildly that he almost dropped the toast he’d grabbed for Elodie. She took it from his fingers before he got too animated. “Who do I speak to about the design, then, if not you?”

“Cassandra is in charge of the-”

“You are joking!” Dorian gasped.

Vivienne sipped gingerly at her tea, a mask of calm on her face. If Elodie knew anything about Vivienne, it was a sign she was none too pleased with the matter herself.

“Who put our lovely Nevarran princess in charge?”

“She doesn’t like it when you bring up her lineage,” Elodie said before biting into the crunchy bread. Bit dry. Needed jam. She reached by her friend, narrowly avoiding his arms as they swung upwards in exasperation.

"Fine then, who put the Seeker in charge?"

“Josephine and Leliana seemed to have approached Cassandra before I could be reached for consultation,” Vivienne said, her voice curt; Elodie could tell she was subtly annoyed. “But I am certain that what our dear Seeker lacks in fashion sense, she more than makes up for in practicality. We will wear whatever she decides with pride.”

“Right. Well, there are only two options that can come of this,” Dorian sighed. “We’ll either be dressed in the plainest of plain rags, or layers of full plate. Neither of which I want to risk.”

“Would armor be that bad?” Elodie said past her mouthful. “We are going there to thwart assasins after all.”

“Darling,” both mages cooed at her simultaneously, a pitiful _tsk_ on the back of the word as if Elodie couldn’t possibly know what was implied in her statement. She frowned, trying her best not to be offended.

“Wait,” Elodie sputtered as the man beside her stood, “Where are you going? I barely started eating.”

“To find Cassandra,” Dorian said. “But you and I are due for a long, more pleasant chat today!"

"But-"

"Just come find me when you have a free moment.”

And with that, Dorian was gone, his footsteps echoing down the great hall as he sought out the woman absurdly in charge of the Inquisition uniforms.

“So,” Vivienne said cheerily, setting her teacup down in its saucer. “Now that our more excitable friends have left us-”

Elodie smirked, happy that she could see the tracest hint of a smile line by Vivienne’s eyes.

“-I wish to speak more about your relationship with Commander Cullen.”

She tried not to let her expression fall. This was good practice, just as the lessons Josephine wished to have with her would  _also_ be good practice. Elodie took a steeling breath, drawing upon her most stubborn feelings and channeling them into what she hoped was a graceful response.

“I figured you might.”

“Is it alright, darling? I do not wish to overstep any boundaries. You are the Inquisitor, after all." Vivienne trained her with a resolute, if not honest, gaze. "I am sure you are more than capable of managing yourself at your own discretion.”

“No, it’s alright,” Elodie said, pushing in Dorian’s chair for him in his absence. “I don’t mind. I know you won’t run wild with anything I tell you.”

“Not to worry, the Inquisition's rumor-hound has already escaped to find Cassandra,” Vivienne said glibly.

“Indeed,” Elodie snickered into her teacup, then set it down and regarded the enchantress with as steady a gaze as she could muster. “Now then. What would you like to know?”

* * *

The storm from yesterday was still thick on the air, even though it had been hours since the last droplet had fallen and the sun was peeking in peaches and buttery yellow past the gray clouds. It was the threat of humid summer that lingered, the last threads of springtime fading as heat chased its heels. After a long and surprisingly bittersweet conversation with Vivienne about images and relationships, it was nice to be outside in the open air. Elodie was making her way to the courtyard, about to follow up on some requisitions she’d filed, when she heard someone calling her from the doorway of the armory.

“Inquisitor!”

Elodie squinted in the light.

“Cassandra?”

“Yes. Ah. Good morning,” the Seeker said, looking a little bedraggled.

“Is it? You look like something’s wrong.”

“No, nothing,” Cassandra said, twisting her fingers. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Her jaw was set, her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to be uncomfortable shouting. Elodie closed the distance, jogging over the dozen meters or so to reach her friend.

“Are you sure?”

Cassandra nodded vigorously.

“Do you have a moment?” she asked, her voice sounding like the time she had to ask Elodie if they were friends. Without pressuring her, Elodie nodded and followed Cassandra into the armory.

They did not stop to speak by the fire as Elodie had assumed they would, but instead walked up a floor to where Cassandra had set up her living space. A few books here and there, a flower or two that Elodie could only assume came from Kannara. They were daffodils, bright yellow, and dried in much the same manner as her delphinium. Before Elodie had a chance to ask what was going on, Cassandra grabbed a forgotten satchel and cloak from where they were draped on the chair by her bed.

Elodie froze. She’d left those in Cullen’s office this morning, too preoccupied in her thoughts to grab them from the floor by his desk. She’d dressed and left with him at her side, quick before anyone saw, and in her haste she’d left the cloak and bag behind. She hadn’t even thought about them until this moment.

But had Cassandra gone in to look for Cullen and found this instead? Had she been given these things by the Commander, like he didn’t want to disturb Elodie’s breakfast by foisting her clothes on her in public?

Elodie didn’t get a chance to think much on it, because Cassandra cleared her throat.

“Commander Cullen asked for me to return these to you.”

“Oh. I must have forgotten them when we… discussed the morning reports, yes,” Elodie took the bag from Cassandra with trembling fingers, feeling as if she were under intense scrutiny.

“When I went over this morning before scrimmaging the troops, deliberately to talk about such reports, he was not in.” Cassandra bit back a smile with difficulty. “Were you going over reports in the war room perhaps?”

Elodie blushed fierely, and Cassandra let out a little happy gasp. She looked positively giddy, wearing an expression Elodie found hard not to mirror.

“You were not in the war room, were you!” Cassandra whispered. “Oh! Tell me everything!”

“You’ll never believe it,” Elodie laughed, grateful to have someone to gush to who wouldn’t think her frivolous and who would take her secrets to the grave.

“Try me!”

“I met with him last night, and,” Elodie trailed off, unable to finish her sentence, and she found it highly amusing that both she and Cassandra were flushing pink at the thought. The Seeker touched both hands to her mouth, as if in happy surprise.

“Are you implying that you…?”

Elodie nodded, bringing her cloak up to hug to her chest. Cassandra brought a hand up to her lips.

“During the storm?”

Another nod.

Both women erupted into squeals, uncharacteristic for them both under normal circumstances. Vaguely, Elodie wondered if this was what having a sister was like. Before she could explore that thought, Cassandra was shooting questions her way, rapid fire as if she barely cared what got answered and what didn't.

“Was there wine? Poetry? Did he light candles? Did he bring you flowers, or perhaps sweets? More perfumed love letters?”

“Cass!"

"F-forgive me," Cassandra cleared her throat, but she could not hide the way her eyes remained alight with excitement and what looked like hope. "But also, please tell me everything."

Elodie laughed.

"There was no food or drink, but not for lack of trying. We were... distracted."

Cassandra let out a happy sigh.

"As far as romance, it wasn't picturesque or anything. Not like the books you've lent me, not really. He was trying to wrangle his bookcase into submission, so he had a few candles illuminating that,” Elodie said. “None lit expressly for our time together, though.”

“Oh, that’s wh- ahem,” Cassandra cleared her throat, flushing pink as well. Elodie lowered the cloak, her eyes wide. “He broke it by himself, then? Before you arrived?”

“Cassandra! You thought we made that mess _together_?”

“It was hard not to jump to such a conclusion,” Cassandra protested. “I asked about the bookcase first, if he required my assistance, and he said he would manage to clean it this morning alone. When I asked how it was broken, he fell quiet, and then I noticed your things in the corner…” she trailed off meaningfully and Elodie hid her face in the cloak that smelled like rain.

Of course that’s what it had looked like. Damn.

“So… the two of you did not… against the bookshelf?”

“No!” Elodie burst with a helpless laugh.

“Oh good,” Cassandra replied, sounding positively relieved. “Not that bookshelves are not perfectly adequate for such activities, I assume, but,” she cleared her throat, glancing away. “I had hoped for your sake that it would be something more… special.”

“It was, even without the wine and the poetry,” Elodie reassured her friend, reaching out to squeeze Cassandra’s hand in hers. “He made time for me. It wasn’t even something I asked for, but he cleared his schedule for an entire night and we had a chance to talk without rushing, to really be together, and he let me stay by his side as I fell asleep.” She sighed happily, omitting the nightmare that had woken her so abruptly and caused such a panic. Keeping her thoughts pleasant, Elodie continued, “In the middle of the night, we watched the rain fall and everything was so mercifully quiet. It was like we had the whole world to ourselves for a few hours.”

“Oh, how splendid," Cassandra whispered. "Time is as precious a gift as any." Pausing, she quirked an eyebrow and leveled Elodie with a wry stare. "I never doubted Cullen’s chivalry, but by Andraste, he truly is courting you properly.”

“I can’t hardly believe it myself,” Elodie muttered. “Is this normal, for humans?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it considered proper to…” Elodie sighed. “To pine for a long time, to write letters, to give gifts and be so blighted patient about it all?”

“I cannot profess to being experienced about the _normal_ way of such things,” Cassandra stated, “but yes, it is proper etiquette to wait and move slowly. To ensure that feelings are true, and loyalties are strong. Is it not so in Dalish culture?”

“Not really,” Elodie shrugged. “As a hunter, I would make a name for myself by bringing back an impressive kill, then basically announce my intentions by presenting it to my beloved. Then we could progress in our relationship, take things to another level. Talking and flirting and falling in love is universal, I would say. But, ah,” she shook her head, overwhelmed with happiness. “The gifts, the letters, the…”

_The way he held back until the very last moment, and then gave me everything._

“I never expected to develop feelings like this,” Elodie finished. “And I never expected for him to feel anything for someone like me.”

“He set aside his work for you,” Cassandra said wistfully.

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“Very. I do not envy him the stack of papers he has on his desk waiting for him in the aftermath,” Cassandra muttered. “Nor do I envy you, for that matter. Josephine was searching for you this morning, saying something about the Winter Palace.”

Elodie grimaced, then tried to hide it behind a smile.

“Did Dorian find you?” she asked. "He was on a mission regarding the same subject."

Cassandra’s gaze darkened into a glower, and she let out a disgusted noise.

“He did, and we had a very brief discussion. He has left in search of someone else to annoy.”

Elodie laughed in surprise, about to ask for more details. But it seemed that both she and her friend were content to ignore the looming threat of their trip to Orlais in lieu of other, more heart-palpitating developments right there in Skyhold.

“We can speak of such things later,” Cassandra gushed, gripping Elodie’s hand with her other fingers and squeezing it tight. “I'm so happy for you. For you both! I do not know if I have ever seen Cullen look so well-rested.”

“Really?”

“Even when he was blushing and scowling, he seemed quite relaxed. His eyes are brighter than they were when I left for the Approach.”

“Oh,” Elodie burst into another smile, so wide that it hurt her cheeks. “You think it’s because of me?”

“Love is a wonderful medicine,” Cassandra said.

“That is a very sweet notion,” Elodie said, laughing nervously. “But it can’t be that. We’ve only just begun our courtship in earnest.”

“You do not think one can fall in love over the course of a friendship?” Cassandra asked. “Must it be on a certain schedule?”

“Cullen and I are good for each other,” Elodie mumbled, a surge of undeniable excitement bursting forth in her chest at the mere mention of it. “We should leave it at that for now.”

She watched as Cassandra raised her eyebrows in clear surprise, and from the looks of it, Cassandra did not agree with the assesment. Before the Seeker could pry or argue, Elodie added, “So I have your approval then?”

Cassandra relaxed.

“You had it from the very beginning.”

Elodie tilted her head, wondering what she meant, but Cassandra didn’t elaborate further. She looked distracted, as if she were remembering something from before but was not comfortable voicing it. The moment of respite from the conversation gave Elodie a chance to think as well.

"Ah, Cass," Elodie mumbled, fluffing her bangs off of her forehead. "While we're on the subject of Cullen, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you think that Cullen and I are..." Elodie forced herself to relax her jaw. "Do you think we should hide our relationship from the public? Just for now, seeing as it's new?"

"What?" Cassandra frowned, her brow furrowing. "Who gave you that idea?"

Elodie shrugged as Cassandra took a step back and waved her own question away.

"Disregard that, I believe I know who would seek to advise you on your reputation."

The Seeker sighed, then crossed her arms as she looked away, mulling something over.

"People will talk, I know that," Elodie said, her words coming quickly in her nervousness. "He comes from an entirely different upbringing than I do. I can see how it could look from the outside, our..." she frowned. "Dallying together. So I just want to make sure I don't make the gossip worse, or cause him any stress."

Cassandra scowled, and Elodie shut her mouth to keep from rambling further.

"Personally, I may not be the right person to advise you. Directness and honesty are all that I know, sometimes to a fault," the Seeker said firmly. "I could never advise you to hide how you feel. I do not think I would be capable of doing so myself, were I in your position."

Cassandra looked over, her expression softening.

"But I am sure that whoever offered this to you was doing so out of care. Out of misguided self-importance," she muttered grumpily, "but care nonetheless."

"You have to admit," Elodie said with a sigh, "it would be easy for someone to look at Cullen and I and think that he's with me for power. Or that I'm using him for his military savvy."

"To jump to such basic conclusion is a waste of an opinion," Cassandra said. "And you should think nothing of people who view you that way. If they think such things, they have never spoken to you, and therefore do not have a say in how you should live your life."

Hearing her own words she'd used in defense earlier that morning bolstered Elodie more than Cassandra's adamant reassurance did. It was true; if someone thought that either she or Cullen would be unable to make unbiased decisions because of their relationship, that person didn't know them at all. On more than one occasion she had put a stop to Cullen's suggestions regarding actions to be taken because they were simply too rigid, or too forward. He took it in stride, never once letting any resentment build. All of her advisors were exceptional in that way. Elodie took a deep breath, then nodded.

"You're right. I don't know why I considered it."

"Because you care how you are viewed by the people you wish to help," Cassandra said quietly. "As does the Commander. He is very careful about appearances, even though he likes to pretend he is not. He would not want anything to reflect poorly on you as the Inquisitor, I say that with confidence."

"I feel the same way about him," Elodie said, sighing once more. "So what do I do?"

"It is not for me or anyone but you to decide," Cassandra replied.

Elodie's expression fell into a pout, one that Cassandra ignored.

"If it were me," Cassandra said, her tone suggesting that she was tired of having to spell it out, "I would neither announce such private affairs from the rooftops, nor would I disguise my feelings for the one I love. So take that as you will. Do what your instincts tell you to do."

"Thank you," Elodie said, smiling wryly at her friend, even though the advice left her in much the same predicament as before. "My instincts tell me that this is going to be more complicated than I thought."

“That is not a bad thing. Now, have you eaten breakfast yet?” the Seeker asked.

Elodie nodded.

“Only just.”

“Good," Cassandra stated. "That means you’ll have the energy for a bit of target practice. It is easier to consider matters of the heart when the head is less clouded." She smiled, then moved towards the stairs leading outside. "Follow me."

Grinning even more broadly, Elodie trailed after Cassandra down the stairs and out by the training dummies, eager to uncloud her turbulent thoughts if she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vivienne cares for Elodie in her own way, but I don't think she and Elodie align very well in this case. I like the idea of Dorian kind of floating about Vivienne since they tolerate one another, they're parallels in a lot of good ways, but Dorian is the one Elodie confides in. Vivienne is too smart not to catch that, which is why in Part Two she'll be heading classes and courses with our No-Good Dalish Quiz. She's got an agenda, but not a mean one. I think it's how she knows how to make friends.
> 
> I don't know when Cassandra became Elodie's big sister, but I don't regret it in the slightest <3 When I was writing this chapter out, I didn't realize the two people who stopped Elodie to discuss what had happened would be reacting the way they did. It happened on its own ^^; in other playthroughs I've courted Cassandra and gotten her giddy/lovestruck reactions, and let me say, it's adorable and she is such a secret softie. I love her so much.
> 
> Also! The headcanon that Cassandra is in charge of deciding the uniforms for the Winter Palace finery comes from the lovely comic by Jody Wegner, linked [here](https://jodywegner.tumblr.com/post/159931259775/i-was-actually-thinking-about-who-exactly-ordered) with permission from the artist. Please go check out her comics, they always make me smile! Yes, yes I know Cass complains about the things when she goes to the Palace herself, but hear me out. And by hear me out, I mean just accept it until I write Part Two of the series ;) hehehe cliffhanger!
> 
> The next one is the last chapter for Part One, sweet things. I hope it's as satisfying for you as it is for me <3


	33. Prayers Answered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final conversation.

Later that evening, when the sun was just barely beginning to set in gold behind the Frostbacks, when the wind carried the faintest hint of mist with it from the storms on the horizon, Elodie went back to Cullen’s office. She knocked softly, but he didn't answer. She opened the door a crack, and was confronted with a messenger sorting through stacks of correspondence and paperwork on Cullen’s desk. The girl was obviously so preoccupied she hadn't heard anything, or perhaps the rustling of papers and helmet that covered her ears had interfered with her situational awareness. Elodie smiled; it was good Cullen had such diligent help. Behind the messenger, the bookcase had been pulled out and better ripped apart, most likely to make firewood from its unsalvageable bits. Its contents had been reorganized in piles and stacks on the chair by the ladder leading up to Cullen’s quarters, most likely where the least amount of traffic moved through the office. The papers wouldn’t be disturbed there.

“Oh! Inquisitor!”

The messenger straightened, saluting, and Elodie returned the gesture.

"I didn't see you, I was-"

"That's okay," Elodie said gently, holding her hand up to show no harm was done. "I could see you were hard at work. I didn't mean to interrupt you."

“If you’re looking for Commander Cullen, ser,” she said, smartly recovering from what looked like a wave of embarrassment, “he said he needed to take a walk.”

“Any idea where he went?” Elodie asked, standing straighter and cracking the door further to better hear the girl.

“North, I think. He took the battlements towards the gardens, your Worship. He said he wouldn’t be but a moment, if you’d like to wait for him here?”

“Oh, no that's alright. I’ll go find him outside,” Elodie said. "Don't let me distract you further." And with a salute she left the messenger to her work.

Was that the assistant Cullen had sent away the other day? The one he had blushed in front of? Elodie smiled at the thought. The girl seemed very sweet, and helpful, if not a bit oblivious. That was a good thing, Elodie reasoned. Cullen needed someone just as focused as he was in order to get things done to his satisfaction, someone who could support him when he needed to take a break to recharge.

The walk along the battlements proved refreshing for Elodie as well. It wasn’t that she didn’t love spending her time among her troops, because she did. She had only just spent a few hours outside with the Chargers and some young mage refugees, after Cassandra had given her advice on how improve her broadsword grip. After that, Elodie had found herself trying to explain to Bull the usefulness of a masseuse. The Qunari had tried to argue that _he_ could be hired to massage anyone who needed it. Halfway through that rather inappropriate conversation, Dorian had stopped by and ordered her a roast sandwich from the tavern and stolen Bull's focus mercifully away. She had shared the food with them both while sitting cross-legged in the grass and avoiding Dorian’s very personal questions. It had felt nostalgic, almost, like Elodie was homesick for a home that never existed in the first place. It was a hard feeling to pinpoint.

As nice as that was, walking up high above the bustle of Skyhold was a completely different and very welcome emotion entirely. It was cleansing. Still as the surface of a frozen lake. A bird’s eye view of the lives below. No wonder Cullen had left the confines of his office to take a stroll; it was beautiful out at dusk especially, the sky just barely turning violet and fuchsia against the jagged rocks and snow.

She saw him before he saw her. Her Commander was leaning against the battlement’s stone, looking out into the Frostbacks and seemingly contemplative in his silence. Or perhaps he was sleeping while standing up? She wouldn’t put it past him. Elodie heard him sigh into the wind, and the almost hopeful noise clutched at her heart.

Walking forward without disguising the weight of her footsteps, she gave Cullen opportunity to hear her approaching so that she wouldn’t startle him. He did not turn, but when she leaned against the stone next to him, he nudged her elbow with his own.

“I’ve been thinking about you, today,” he said by way of hello.

“Have you, now?”

He nodded, and she leaned further onto him. Sidling up to crush herself against him, Elodie twined her arm through his and nestled her cheek onto the fur on his shoulder. Cullen’s hand found hers, his gloved fingers covering her knuckles with ease.

“I’m sorry for this morning,” she said.

“Don’t be,” Cullen answered immediately. “Are you feeling any better?”

“I am,” Elodie replied. “Thank you for helping me.”

“I didn’t do much.”

Elodie sighed, thinking back to Cole’s words about how she had helped Cullen before. She hadn’t done much either, or so it had seemed at the time. It brought a semblance of relief, knowing that she and Cullen could comfort one another so effortlessly. She wondered if it would always be that way, or if this was merely a sweet beginning.

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked, hesitance lowering his voice to almost a whisper. Elodie swallowed hard past the nerves that suddenly clutched at her throat, and her prayer from earlier that morning echoed in the far corner of her mind.

_Give me the strength_.

“M-my father’s name was Miolvun," she started off. Her voice was shaky, nervous, and she took a steeling breath. "Did I ever tell you that?”

“No,” Cullen said softly. "Does it mean anything in particular, or is it just a name?"

"It's our word for firefly," Elodie said with a smile. "Literally translated it would be 'star bug' I think."

"I like that."

"Me too. My mother's middle name was Sulahna, and Da said I had her face, so my middle name came from her. Otherwise I probably would've been Elodie Miolvun Lavellan, in another life."

"Tell me more about him," Cullen said, then caught himself and stammered, "Ah, if you want to, I mean. I don't want you to feel forced."

Elodie smiled gently at his fumbling and gave his hand a little squeeze.

“My father was a vibrant man. He liked music more than anything. He never learned any instruments, not for lack of trying, but he had such an ear for melody. He was a beautiful singer.”

Cullen stayed silent, and Elodie took a bracing, deep breath.

“When I was almost ten years old, he got sick.”

She stared out into the Frostbacks, but it was not the pines of Ferelden she was seeing before her. Her mind’s eye conjured up memories of the Free Marches, of when it had all gone downhill. The scent of pitch, firewood, and elfroot seemed to flicker for a moment barely beyond her nostrils, and then it was gone. She blinked hard, trying to figure out where to start.

“It began slowly, with headaches and strange sleeping patterns. I thought he was overworked, perhaps traveling too much, but I didn’t notice more than a…” Elodie swallowed, trying to figure out how to explain it. “It was just a feeling I got. That he wasn’t okay.”

Cullen’s hand squeezed hers reassuringly.

“But he didn’t really let on that much was wrong. He laughed, was still extremely playful, and he still sang all the time. So I didn’t think much when our clan moved further south to the shore for a bit. I didn't make the connection when he traveled with two accompanying healers across the sea to the outskirts of Orlais. I just thought, ‘oh Da is weird, Da is off exploring’, nothing more.”

“You were very young,” Cullen commented.

“Not too young to notice when he came back looking better, though. It was my first clue that he had been sick in the first place, the fact that medicine could cure him. We talked about it a little bit. He told me he was sick, and that he would be sick for the rest of his life. But he told me that he could take medicine to stay well."

"It's good he was honest with you."

"Yes... but I was easily distracted. He brought back this delicious peach and lavender butter for me every time he went for medicine in Jader, a little jar of the stuff. I wasn't worried, not like I should have been." Elodie smiled, her mouth watering a bit at the memories that flooded her mind in quick succession. "Since we always seemed to travel near my birthday, it was his present to me. For a couple of years, it became a tradition of ours. When he got sicker, we’d go back to the shore, get more medicine from Jader, and then rejoin our clan moving about the Free Marches to share my birthday treat.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever tried peach butter before.”

“It’s phenomenal and absolutely impossible to find,” Elodie said with a sigh. “But regardless. I should have known sooner things were getting worse. His vision was failing him, and he had difficulty balancing on his own. He started to walk with a cane, even though he was still young. His headaches had gotten worse, he had started to faint for minutes, sometimes several minutes, at a time. More and more frequently his body thrashed in fits, and all I could do was turn him on his side and hope that he stopped before he bit his tongue.”

She swallowed, trying to remember her train of thought, trying to push away the memories of how small her da had gotten in the last few months of their time together. He'd eaten less, slept more, and she had watched his clothes hang like blankets about his figure. She bit her lip, holding Cullen’s hand tight.

“On my sixteenth birthday, my father was so ill that he didn’t remember what day it was. Our clan had moved back down to the shores. After I talked with Deshanna I sailed to Jader by myself, since he was too ill to get on the boat."

"That bad?"

"Well, he was still functional and walking for the most part, but I was scared he'd have a fit and accidentally go in the water if he tried to sail with me. Even though it was only a day's journey in the summer weather, I couldn't risk it. I left when he was asleep, and when I got back he'd barely noticed I was gone."

"I would have been nervous to go alone. Were you alright?"

"It wasn't pleasant, but I remembered a lot of people from my previous visits. Merchants who recognized me and were kind to me. I got his medicine without any trouble, but I didn’t look for the peach butter, and part of me…” a lump formed in her throat, an unvoiced guilt she had never expressed blocking her words. She cleared her throat, then tried again, her voice tremulous and scared. “Part of me was so angry that there wasn’t this stupid treat waiting for me when I got back. That all I had time for was his medicine, and that he was too weak to even go with me on my birthday.”

She could hear Cullen’s intake of breath, like he wanted to say something, but he stopped himself. Afraid to glance over, to see if he was looking at her, Elodie closed her eyes and hung her head to allow her curls to fall like a curtain past her face.

“Immediately once my anger left, I was consumed with guilt. He could tell. I know he could tell. I had started to go on hunts the last few years, had just started to consider what vallaslin I would take, and our clan was traveling alongside another’s for a while. I had friends my own age, things to do, people to see, and he was bedridden by this point. We talked all the time, but I know he could tell it hurt me to leave him behind,” Elodie swiped under her eyes, tears flowing freely now. “We had a fight, about six months after my birthday.”

She paused to collect herself, sniffing hard to try to contain the worst of her emotions. Cullen had held her as she cried before, but now it was as if he could sense her reluctance to acknowledge that she needed comfort. He stood at her side while she straightened her shoulders, and when Elodie chanced a glance over, she noticed he was staring into the Frostbacks, unseeing as she had been. His eyes looked incredibly sad, hooded, as if he were imagining every word she said alongside of her. It strengthened her resolve, and Elodie breathed the fresh air in deep.

“He told me that next year, for my birthday, he’d tell me where to find the peach butter. But he also said that he didn’t think he would live long enough to get it for me himself.”

“It must have been bad,” Cullen whispered when Elodie fell silent. “For him to know it was almost time.”

She nodded, sniffling against the back of her hand to try to find her words again.

“It was. But instead of talking to him about it or asking how he knew, I got scared. I got angry. We shouted at each other, cried, and I left knowing he couldn’t follow me. My friend Imara and I ran off to a local shem village, sneaking into a tavern with a few boys who bought us drinks and food. I didn't intend to stay there as long as I did, but every time I made to leave, Imara told me not to worry. That I needed a break. So...” Elodie shook her head, swiping more tears away. “I stayed there most of the night, avoiding my feelings. My Keeper found us there in the early morning hours. She told us my father had passed away... not long after I left.”

“Oh, Elodie,” Cullen breathed.

She gave a humorless laugh, but couldn’t say why.

“It’s fine,” she said, even though it never truly was. “It’s been a long time, and I’ve mourned him in many ways over the years. I’ve apologized to him, to the Maker, to my Keeper-”

She cut herself off, leaning hard against Cullen’s shoulder. She shut her eyes tight against the fresh wave of grief that threatened to overtake her. She hadn't shared this with anyone before, so deeply did her guilt still run. It was the reason why she tried to take stock of her feelings before relying on anyone else's advice on them. It was why she didn't react well to being taken care of, because she should have trusted her instincts and gone back. It was why Elodie kept her hair unbraided now, as a shield against the memory of fingers in her hair and tightness in her chest.

With his free hand, Cullen reached over to tuck her bangs back behind her ear with steady fingers. Elodie looked up at him before he pulled away, and he leaned further onto the stone of the battlement wall to get a better look at her. She shuddered with the effort it took not to pull at the tresses he had just pushed back, but she wanted him to see her. More than she wanted to hide, she wanted him to know what she was feeling. When their eyes met, there was an unspoken sadness shared between them. Had Cullen left his parents smiling? Did he regret not having been there when they died? Elodie swallowed hard against the grief, against the compassion she felt for his mourning as well as her own. They had so much pain in common, it seemed. In that moment, Elodie couldn't tell where hers ended and his began, and perhaps that was what gave her the courage to go on.

“I dreamed about him last night.”

Cullen sighed deeply, as if he understood how mind-shattering something that vivid could be.

She bit her lip, then continued.

“Sometimes in my nightmares, he’s sending me to the Conclave. Sometimes, he’s swallowed by the Breach. Sometimes I’m even back in the tavern with Imara, waiting to hear that he’s gone.”

“And last night?” Cullen asked. "What did you dream?"

Elodie exhaled, smiling past the tears caught on her lashes.

“Something beautiful, at first.”

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corner even as his brow remained slightly furrowed.

“I dreamed that you met him,” Elodie said, glancing down at Cullen’s gorget so that she wouldn’t blush or lose her nerve. His hand at her cheek seemed to flex, as if he were trying to keep still and not show his surprise. Elodie shook her head at her own audacity. “You were… young. Very young. And dressed strangely. But you were there, talking with my father about tea.”

“That was the beautiful part?” Cullen asked, and Elodie immediately glanced up at the husky timbre his voice embodied. She watched as Cullen blinked rapidly, as if banishing tears of his own, and he dropped his gaze to where their hands were connected between them on the stone of the battlement.

“Yes,” she whispered, the ache within her wrapping tightly around itself in an almost comforting embrace.

“Mmm,” Cullen grunted.

His tone was noncommittal, perhaps so he could get ahold of whatever he was feeling. Embarrassment? Discomfort, that Elodie would imagine such a forward thing? Unease that she was crying once more? Elodie swallowed hard, anxiety building upon itself the longer he remained silent, but then Cullen managed to catch her eyes with his once more.

With a bittersweet smile, he asked, “Do you think he would have approved of us? Of you being courted by a human?”

Elodie scoffed past the immediate grin she found twisting at the corner of her lips, barely able to keep her emotions in check. Her father would have loved to tease someone as proper as Cullen. He would have loved to pry as she did, curiosity a familial trait passed down unabashedly through their generations. Her father would have seen how Elodie smiled when she was with Cullen, and would have felt at peace. She nodded vigorously, and it was Cullen’s turn to laugh.

“You seem so certain, miss.”

“I am.” Elodie paused, considering a bit more. “I mean, he would have been surprised, to say the least, but he would have liked you. Once you got to know each other.”

“I hope so,” Cullen said with a smile. “For the record, you were calling for him in your sleep. That, and you said something about waking up, which is why I even tried to touch you.”

“Ah, yes,” Elodie grimaced. “I dreamed I was there when he passed away. It was a bit difficult to deal with. I assumed he was sleeping in the dream. Then people tried to take him away to bury him, and it was just… difficult.”

Cullen made an expression like he understood, a little quirk of his mouth that wasn’t quite a frown.

“You mentioned something about people hushing you in the dream, when you finally woke up,” he said, dropping his hand to her shoulder. “Was that why you fought so hard? Were they hurting you?”

“No, no,” Elodie shook her head, a streak of guilt tracing through her once more. “I just didn’t know where I was. Instinct.”

Cullen nodded somberly, but said nothing. She frowned at his silence, hoping she hadn't offended.

“Once, when Sera and Cassandra woke me up from a particularly bad dream," Elodie blurted, at a loss of how to reassure him, "I accidentally socked Sera in the tit. So it’s not because of you or anything you did! Don’t worry!”

Cullen’s expresion burst into a grin of shock, and the hand entwined with hers pulled her closer to his side.

“I’m lucky you only caught me on the cheek, then,” he teased.

Elodie winced.

“I’m not happy I caught you at all.”

“I am,” Cullen said, and he brought up her hand to kiss the back of it, letting the other meaning of the phrase sink in. Even as he said it with such confidence, Elodie watched as he blushed a warm pink, the color brightening his cheeks and ears. At dusk, there was still enough light to watch him try to pretend he wasn’t turning red.

“I’m glad I have you,” Elodie murmured, leaning forward on her tiptoes as she tilted her head back for a kiss. Cullen obliged her, pressing into her with their hands held between them, and for a moment Elodie allowed herself to feel the secret emotion she was seeking to protect bloom within her core. She let it flood her chest, pouring through her being and into her very kiss.

A thought occurred, unbidden. If Cullen had her lips between his teeth and her tongue against his scar, he wouldn’t know it when she let the words escape. She could whisper it against him, mouth it onto the softness of his lower lip, and he would never know. She could confess without breaking the feeling into shards, without putting undue pressure on him to reciprocate.

But before Elodie could even deepen the kiss, Cullen broke away and gave a great sigh.

“I have to get back to work,” he said, his tone signaling Elodie that he would rather be on the battlements with her than back in his office.

"You are a very busy man, Commander. I'm glad you could take the time to see me again today."

"As am I," he replied. "I don’t want to leave until I know you’re alright, though.”

“I am,” she answered, nodding in the setting rays of the sun.

“With e-everything?”

“What do you mean?” Elodie murmured, tilting her head to the side as she eyed his lips.

“We said a lot of it last night,” Cullen said, straightening his shoulders a bit. “But I must reiterate that I wasn’t planning to… do all that we did when we did." His eyes widened as he realized how that came off, and he added, stammering, "Not that I regret it, and not that I wish it had been any different, but it was not my intention to move so quickly upon your return.”

“Was it too fast for you, Cullen?”

“No, not at all,” he blurted, and he took a breath as if to allow his mouth a second to catch up with the words his mind wanted to say. “Surprising that it began where it did, but not in a bad way.”

“I’m glad you had locks on your doors,” Elodie murmured.

Cullen gave a laugh, as if the thought hadn’t occured to him.

“I am, too. The fact that you stayed the night, even with the initial waking how it was," he smiled at Elodie's scoff, then lowered his voice. "It was a gift to be allowed to wake up beside you.”

Elodie beamed up at him, practically bursting with happiness. Cullen’s jaw clenched and the beginnings of another blush crept up his neck. He threw his gaze away from her, as if to collect himself.

“Looking past my desk at the chair you had me sit in became a bit distracting, though. I had to walk to clear my thoughts.”

“Ah,” Elodie chuckled, warming at the thought. “I suppose it would be best not to reinforce those thoughts of yours before you had to return, right?”

“Thank you,” he said, the words rough. Elodie laughed, and he winced. “For last night, I mean.”

“Was it everything you wanted?” Elodie asked, turning her wrist to lace her fingers through his. She pulled away to glance up at him, to gauge his reaction.

“Not everything,” he said, his expression sliding to a smirk.

He was teasing her, she realized. His eyes were bright, alight with the clarity that fresh air always seemed to afford him and Elodie saw in him the same ferocity that threaded through her veins when she used to lead hunts. She wondered what it would be like to take Cullen into the woods, just the two of them. Would he show her a different side of himself? One that she'd seen on the battlefield before Haven? Or would he follow her, obeying her every order, just as he had with the skipping stones?

“What more do you have planned for me, Commander?” Elodie asked, settling against him once more.

He sighed.

“Too much for us to indulge in at the moment, Inquisitor.”

She laughed, eagerness bubbling from within her chest.

“Will we find the time to get to it all?”

“Maker, I hope so,” he practically groaned, and then cleared his throat as if remembering himself. “I just mean that, while you are in Skyhold, I hope that we can take advantage of every opportunity to see one another. Since you have to travel so consistently to fulfill your obligations.”

“Mmm…”

Elodie was about to hint that she wanted to go back and help him clear away some of the paperwork on his desk when she remembered something.

“Oh! Before you go,” she broke away from his arms, then reached into her satchel. His gift, the one she’d made for him and tried to give him earlier, was still on the top of her bag, its leather pouch still neatly tied in a bow. She pulled it forth, grinning up at Cullen mischievously.

“What is that?” he asked.

“This,” Elodie held out the pouch, “is the gift I made for you.”

“Ah,” Cullen’s eyes brightened, even as they narrowed in mock sternness. “The one you conveniently forgot in my office this morning?”

“The one I’m very glad you didn’t open without me,” Elodie confirmed. “Go on, take it.”

Cullen reached out and took the bag delicately. He didn’t shake it as she had shaken her toolset. He held its weight in one palm and gently undid the ribbon around the lip of the pouch, as if the contents were a living thing to be protected. Once opened, Cullen dug around in the pouch a bit clumsily, his gloves getting in the way. After a breathless second passed, Cullen delicately pulled out a string of shimmering beads.

“Another necklace?” Cullen asked, his voice small. Elodie shook her head.

“Close. I just made it from some necklaces. Well, from resin and pieces of shattered jewelry,” she said as she held her hand out for them.

Cullen passed the beads to her, their clicks gentler than the ones of the glass in Cole’s windchime. The beads shone brightly in the setting sun, the resin clear of bubbles for the most part. He said nothing, watching intently as if Elodie was performing a sleight of hand that he didn’t want to miss.

“I created a spherical mold," Elodie explained, "and poured the resin in there across the thread to get the beads into the right shape. Took me a few tries to get them to hold the bits of jewels while they set, which is why the ones on the bottom are all lumpy and weird. But the thread is strong, made from a spare pendant I undid, and you can just ignore the bottom ones if you want.”

She smiled to herself, but before Cullen could say anything, she marched forward with more explanation.

“I didn’t know your favorite colors, so I tried to match this to your armor. I have some bits of garnet that I smashed up, and then a few iridescent feathers I cut _really_ small, along with a little bit of gold flakes from some earrings I took apart. And that made the beads reflect so much of the sun, do you see?”

Elodie held the circle with both hands up to the light. At the bottom center of the circle, a line of smaller beads led to a miniature, dangling crystal cut lion. It was connected through the back of its mane, its mouth open in a delicate, tiny roar that reflected the light of the setting sun in rainbows across their faces.

“Can you tell what they are if I hold them up like this?” Elodie asked.

She was beginning to grow nervous, as she always tended to when giving the gifts she was most invested in, and Cullen’s clenched jaw was no indication of whether or not he was happy. In fact, his face was almost stoic as he stared up at her splayed fingers. Elodie waited a beat, and she wondered if he was processing what they were, or if he was trying to conjure up something other than indifference.

“D-did I make them wrong?” she asked, insecurity shrinking her voice into a far more wheedling tone than she’d meant for it to.

“No,” he said, his voice husky. “No, not at all. They’re… prayer beads, right?”

“Yes!” Elodie smiled, moving her hands to give them back to Cullen, but he stared down at them without moving. “I assumed that you already had some of your own, so I was a bit nervous to give them to you. I figured that you could always have more than one set, so it was worth making them regardless. But then this morning in the Chantry I noticed you didn’t have any. You kissed your knuckles instead of the beads when you finished praying. So... maybe this is a luckier gift than I realized!”

He nodded solemnly, but still said nothing. No condemnation, no excitement, and his expression seemed to darken with the skies turning violet and indigo behind them.

Out of all the things she expected to have broken them, a handmade gift was not one of them. Elodie's mind raced through possibilities of offense. He'd said she hadn't made them wrong, but maybe it was sacrilegious for anyone not of the Chantry to make such an instrument. Maybe the armor he wore in this color scheme was only out of necessity, not out of particularity, and she had given him colors that reminded him of war and upset. Perhaps it was even too close of an object to bestow upon someone who was only just beginning their courtship. Was it too personal? Too ugly? Her stomach roiled at the thought.

"Cullen," Elodie whispered, her voice breaking, and he turned his eyes back to hers.

Tears. They were unshed, and to any human it would not have been noticeable in the waning light of dusk, but Elodie's eyes had already adjusted to the incoming dark. Cullen's hazel irises glistened like molten gold in a way Elodie hadn't seen before. In barely the span of a heartbeat, as if he had immediately remembered himself, Cullen blinked them back. His expression hardened, like he was trying to put off a stronger air than the vulnerability he'd accidentally let slip, and she watched his jaw clench and then relax.

“They're perfect," he whispered. "I left mine back in Kirkwall, back when the Chantry…”

Cullen let out a little breath, and he didn't continue. She couldn't get a read on him, much as she tried, and she hurried to try to explain herself.

"I know that prayer brings you comfort," Elodie whispered. "I thought, if I could help you find that, or if I could make you something to find that," she paused, adjusting her fingers within the sparkling beads. "Then you'd be happy."

Cullen's expression fell, and for a moment she couldn't tell if she had hurt him, but then he caught Elodie’s hands and pulled her roughly to his chest. Before she had time to speak, to breathe, he was kissing her, desperate and searching. She moaned against the onslaught, taken off guard but incredibly eager, and when he pressed her into the stone of the battlement wall, Elodie kissed him back with just as much ardor. His hands tangled with hers, clutching her gift with surprising gentleness, his knuckles lacing past hers so that their palms covered the prayers yet unsaid between them both. He made a noise of his own, a helpless sound so soft that was almost lost on the breeze blowing past them. Elodie recognized it in herself as well, a mixture of sadness and the antithesis of loneliness that they managed to afford for each other. He was seeking comfort from her, from the memories this connected to, and she gave it over as best she could. When his tongue danced about hers, she let him draw her deeper into him. When his canines scraped licentiously along the curve of her lower lip, she nibbled in turn at his scar.

When Cullen pulled away, breathless as he pressed his forehead to hers, Elodie struggled to find her words.

“So this means you like them?” she whispered with difficulty.

“Yes,” Cullen said, nuzzling further against her in order to press a kiss to her temple. “I love them.”

Elodie’s heart skipped a beat, and her expression must have clearly shown it, because Cullen’s eyes widened when he pulled back to look at her once more. It wasn’t what he said, so much as how he said it, that threw her off. It was only a little word, but Elodie could feel her chest fill with light at the thought. She laughed, trying to play it off and cover up what felt like a hopefulness she hadn’t experienced in years.

“Be sure not to forget them the next time you take me to service,” she ordered softly.

Cullen relaxed, but only slightly, his gaze straying down to her neck. He brought his hand up to cover the back of her neck protectively, his thumb smoothing a gentle path up and down from the slope of her neck to her earlobe.

“I won’t.”

He had seen her truth, Elodie knew he had, and his expression barely covered his own surprise at her reaction. Had it been a slip on his part, to use that word? Had she interpreted it wrong? Had he meant for her to take it seriously and feel the full weight of such a confession as she did? Cullen bit at his lip, and Elodie hoped beyond hope that it was to keep back a smile.

“You said you were thinking about me, when I first found you here,” Elodie whispered.

“I was.”

“Anything you’d like to share?”

She regarded him with a bravery she could hardly believe she had in her. This was his chance, if he had been hinting at something before, to confess. She knew that if he said the word to her now, she would want to blurt it back, would want to tell him how this was all fresh and fragile and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Cullen’s lips twitched into a smile he seemed to let fade without realizing, and then he brought his honeyed gaze to hers.

“I’m not sure how to go about this, but…”  he cleared his throat, glancing back towards the mountains. “I'm grateful that you want to continue this with me.”

“This?”

“Our relationship,” Cullen clarified, his voice low as he glanced back at her. His hand trailed down past her shoulder to find her waist, holding her to him with a gentleness that always managed to surprise her. He was hard planes of metal and leather, but he never touched her with force. He guided her, unassuming and tender. Elodie was hit, then, with a memory of when he had confessed to her that he didn't think it was possible for her to care for him. He hadn't expected anything beyond small moments, scraps of time together for which he would be grateful. Cullen felt as if he deserved the scar on his lip, but did he doubt he deserved Elodie's lips on his?

Ridiculous, sweet man.

“I should be the grateful one,” she said softly. “I feel as if you’ve let me pursue you rather fervently.”

“I lack the talent of the chase. Maybe I need hunting lessons from someone more skilled than I,” Cullen teased.

Elodie chuckled to herself, thinking that maybe he could be a rather convincing predator when he wanted to be. He had told her what he wanted last night, after all. He could be coaxed into being more aggressive, even if he preferred to be subdued with her for now. The thought alone sent her heart to beating harder in her chest.

“What did you think when I tried to get close to you, back in Haven?” Elodie asked, butterflies in her chest and teasing in her voice. "When I first started chasing you?"

“I wondered why you even bothered to speak to me,” Cullen admitted. “I felt like my mind was always in a million different places. I can’t have been very fun to talk to.”

“You were,” Elodie insisted. “Even if you were a bit distant at times, you answered all of my questions, and you never made me feel stupid for asking them.”

“Good. I grew fond of you and your questions very quickly.”

“Say that again for me, Cullen,” Elodie whispered, closing her eyes as a gust of wind blew forth from the Frostbacks.

“I…” Cullen paused, as if he were trying to figure out what Elodie wanted to hear, and then dipped his cheek to hers. “I grew fond of you, Elodie.”

Elodie shuddered, freeing her hand from Cullen’s fingers so that she could wrap both her arms around his neck. She pulled him into a tight embrace, and he returned the gesture without a word. She nuzzled into his neck as he sighed into her curls, holding him close. For a moment, everything was still above the grounds of Skyhold, the last few breaths of spring cooling the air just enough for the two of them to breathe deeply and feel the chill of it in their lungs.

As she exhaled, Elodie knew that the moment could not last forever. Cullen would have to pull away, would have to leave her to go back to his papers, and she would have to find Josephine and apologize for fading away into the background rather than being lectured about the ball. Elodie knew that she and Cullen would dance around one another in new ways now that she was home, especially after the warning she was given by the two mages over breakfast, and she had a gut-wrenching feeling that the bottom was going to drop out at any given minute if she let herself relax too completely.

But for now, for a blissful series of breaths, they were safe and in each other’s arms.

A thought came to Elodie’s mind, drifted to her like fog rolling in over water. A question she had never asked her Commander, but had asked almost everyone else, a metaphor she had made for almost all of her companions but hadn't for him. Maybe she had never needed to question because she already knew what drink would best represent her Commander.

Cullen was honey mixed with warm amber liquor. He soothed her, gave her unrelenting sweetness, and was even stronger than he seemed. Intoxicated by his very presence, he heated her blood with accidental precision and left her limbs heavy and sated. She could drink her fill of him if she chose, but had drawn it out, relishing every taste he ever gave her. Elodie laughed softly against his neck.

“Sorry,” Cullen murmured, pulling away to face her. "Did you say something?"

“Nothing,” Elodie said. “Just that I’m terribly fond of you, too.”

Instead of answering, Cullen let out a quick exhale, as if her confession had knocked into him like a physical blow. Tenderly, he pulled her to him once more, his kiss relaxed and slow as his hand found its way back to tangle in her curls. He cradled her into his kiss, protective and taking his sweet time. Elodie let everything fall away save for the feeling of his scar against her tongue and his hand at her cheek. The air warm and balmy around them, Elodie kissed Cullen with every ounce of fondness, desire, and admiration that she held for him, her heart beating rapidly beneath his capable hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say that I'm incredibly grateful to all of YOU for sticking around through all of Elodie's pining, nightmares, confusion, relationships, and missteps. Hearing that you love her, that you're intrigued by her, warms my Grinchy heart so very very much. I try to reply to all of your comments because they mean the world to me, but even if you and I never speak and you're still reading this here-- I hope you had even half as much fun reading this as I did writing it <3
> 
> There will be a Halamshiral at the very least, the Part Two of this series, but I don't know when it will come. I wish I could give you a set date, but for now just know it's in the future! I want to finish up my modern Elodie au, as well as write out a few Origins drabbles to keep things loose. So in the meantime, fingers crossed that this is an okay ending for us to leave them on: hopeful for the future, in each other's arms, and decked out in glittery gifts just like Elodie's aravel.
> 
> <3


End file.
